Call Me Rick Grimes
by Tixxy
Summary: Rick has just found his family only to lose them again. What will he do and what will he be forced to do in order to reclaim his wife and his son?
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter One: Eyes Open**

Rick stumbled through the woods. He'd received a blow to his head, so he was a having a little trouble seeing things straight. Maybe he'd been having trouble even before then. Shane and Lori. How the hell had he not seen that? How had he not expected it?

He'd awoken from his coma six months ago, fought creatures out of nickel fiction for the bare hope he would find someone, anyone alive, then had done the impossible and found his family alive. His wife, his son, his best friend who'd been like a brother to him through High School and their time on the force together.

He'd not even been suspicious. Shane and Lori had always been close, and Rick and Lori had been fighting a lot more right before he got shot and went into a coma. There was bound to be some awkwardness.

Then Shane had attacked him. He'd been stealing a kiss with his own wife and Shane and come up behind him and hit him with enough force to kill Rick if his head hadn't been so hard.

Rick blinked blood out of his eye and leaned his long body against a tree. "Sonofa Bitch," he murmured, trying to shake the dizziness. The groan of a walker sent a shot of adrenaline through his system. He grabbed the only weapon left to him, a dead branch of the ailing oak that supported him. "Sonofabitch left me for dead!" he snarled as he smushed the soft skull of the walking, rotting corpse.

He pushed himself away from the tree and stalked back in the direction of the camp. His thoughts focused enough to keep him upright. The sharp sting of betrayal pumped venom into his blood. "My brother and my wife?" The words bubbled in his gut and conjured up images of even before the fucking dead started walking and ruining the world.

Lori had been getting distant for a long time, picking fights for no reason, looking at him like didn't quite measure up to something, or someone. And he'd been lying in a coma in the hospital when all hell broke loose. Shane had gotten Lori and Carl out. For that Rick was grateful, but the bastard had also left him for dead in a hospital packed full of zombies.

"That's twice you sonofa bitch. Fucking twice!"

He picked up speed, his boot heels crunching in the fallen leaves and fragile twigs, his heart racing with one he was gonna do when he saw Shane's face again. He'd killed before; only men who had guns trained on him and zombies, but he felt like he could do it just for the pleasure of it if it were Shane. The field near where they made camp was coming into view and Rick bore his stick like it was a club.

"I can forgive a lot of things, but not this Shane. Not this."

He hurried through the last barrier of trees and it was minutes before his adrenaline clouded brain slowed down enough to allow him to see what was wrong with the scene. The area where they usually kept the RV and tents was clear but for a few hurriedly left behind supplies and the torn bodies of zombies.

Rick felt his knees try to give out as he staggered through the piles of bodies, pushing some to the side. "Lori! Carrrl!" He cried, not caring if he brought some of the walking dead down on himself. He had just found them. At least if he lost them to Shane they would still be alive, but if he lost them to the fucking zombies…

"Lori!" He rushed over to a dark haired body, pushing away the arm of another corpse until he could see the face. A gusty sigh left his body when he saw that it wasn't her. "Carl?" He whimpered, scrabbling over and through the rest of the bodies. "Carl?"

He couldn't forgive himself if something happened to his son. "Carl?"

He'd reached the edge of the campgrounds and found nothing resembling his son and breathed a sigh of relief. They were alive. They had to be. Shane might be a son of a bitch, but he knew that he wouldn't let anything happen to Lori or Carl. He pressed his palms into his eyes and tried to press the tears back into their ducts, but they streamed down his face despite his best intentions.

"How could you take them away from me again? They're all I have."

Rick looked up at the darkening sky and pulled his sheriff's belt tight around his waist. He wiped the snot from his nose and blinked at the waste left around him, seeing what he could use, what would be useful. A canteen. A knife. A few scraps of cloth. A pack.

He gathered what he could and squinted his eyes at the ground, torn up where the wheels of the RV had peeled away the grass. He'd found them once. He would find them again.


	2. Chapter 2

~ focusedOnProsperity , thanks for pointing out the breaks between my character stories were gone. I edited them back in.

**Chapter 2 : Only Me**

The sun pierced through Rick's eyelid like a dagger causing water to leak down the corners of his eyes even before they were open. Once they were, he shot to his feet like a hare sensing a fox. He'd fallen asleep. Right there on the ground, out in the open, he'd fallen asleep.

Feeling a sharp pain in his gut, Rick bent nearly in half as a wave of nausea rushed through him. He hadn't eaten in nearly a week and drinking pond water was doing him no favors. Grief wasn't either. Lori. Carl. Everything he had in the world was lost out in it with a man he used to call his best friend.

He wiped his hand over his dry mouth and rested back against the tree that had been his pillow feeling a sense of helplessness try to drag him down. Everyday he fought at it like quick sand, but it wouldn't quit sucking at him.

"Carl." He said the name aloud, just to hear it. They'd been practicing shooting together and Dale had been teaching them out of a book about which plants were safe to eat and which weren't. He wished he could remember right now, but the poison from the unsanitary water was enough of a toxin for a while.

"Graaaaa~"

Rick sighed, hearing the sound of a moaning walker off in the distance. Couldn't they just leave him alone? Couldn't they let him wallow in self-pity for even just one second longer?

He groaned as he pushed himself to his feet and readjusted the pack of supplies on his back. The few canned goods he hadn't allowed himself to eat tugged like ten pound weights at his back. He considered eating them just to lighten the load, but he had no idea how much longer he would be traveling or when he would find another place to restock supplies. He'd managed to follow the tire tracks of the RV out to the road, but the trail disappeared on the pave and all he had to go on was general direction, hoping to God they didn't go down some side road.

"It's hot." His voice raked out like gravel through his throat. A few days ago, the silence had started to get to him, so he spoke aloud just to hear a voice, to feel like he had some company. "My feet are starting to hurt in these boots."

He slicked a hand through his greasy hair, feeling the mites struggling to survive at the roots. "Ya'll gon' die soon just like everything else. It's about as easy to live up there as it is to live out here." He chuckled and kicked a bit of gravel to the side of the road. "I miss my boy. I hope he ain't all Shane's by the time I find him again."

**/**

The smell didn't bother her anymore. The slow pace did, but not the smell. The walkers couldn't go faster than a shuffle. If they hurried they'd probably leave a trail of body parts. Or maybe, their brains just didn't have the hurry gene anymore.

Michonne blinked up at the sky, trying to find a single cloud. It hadn't rained in a month. Somehow the rain made things bearable. The sun, it wore away her resolve. It wore away her reason, what little reason she had left.

**/**

"Carl, get away from the woods. How many times have we told you not to stand close to the woods?"

Carl turned toward his mother who was pulled tight to Shane's side by one of his long, hairy arms. His eyes narrowed and he went back to scribbling letters in the dirt, right at the base of a tree at the forefront of the forest.

"Boy, your mama told you to move. How is she gonna feel if a walker gets you?"

"About as bad as she felt when a walker got Dad."

Lori felt shame flush through her. She and Shane had told Carl that a walker had bitten Rick and they hadn't been able to save him.

"I was devastated."

Carl's eyes shifted to Shane and that arm again. Shane had been the one to shoot Rick when he turned into a walker. "So dev'stated you had to go and replace him with Shane before you were even out of the woods."

Words choked in Lori's throat and Shane came to her rescue. "Your mama needs someone to protect her. She's just not good with a gun like some of us are. She's sweet and gentle and can't kill a thing. We, you and me, we gotta take care of her. And we do that by making sure you don't get hurt. So get away from the woods."

Carl threw his stick to the ground and walked back toward the RV, his shoulders pressed tight against his ears and his father's Sheriff hat pulled low over his eyes. _How could you let yourself get killed, Dad? How could you?_

**_/_**

Rick finally gave up on trying to make his supplies last longer than they should. His gut was gnawing at his back and his legs were getting weaker and weaker. He couldn't find his son if got killed by some walker because he was too weak. He blinked around at the vehicles littering the road, figuring it would be safer to hole up in one of them for the night than to accidentally fall asleep in the woods again. He pulled on knobs until he found one that was open. He didn't bother to check if he could get it started and go after the RV by car. The tank had been left open with the lid laying on the ground, just like others nearby - the gas had been siphoned.

He slipped into the backseat with a sigh of relief, not to be out of the heat, but to be off of his feet. The car was twice as warm as it was outside, so he stripped off his shirt, heck even his pants and used them to help cushion the seat, thankful that they were cloth rather than leather. If the seats had been leather, he would have taken his chances in the forest. It was better to lose skin to a walker than the flesh of some long-dead animal.

He pulled a can of peas out of his pack, thanked God it had a pull top, and polished them off in less time than it had taken him to open the can.

Rick sighed with relief, feeling the new weight in his shrunken stomach and laid a knife by his side as he settled down to try to sleep and recharge. Following the trail in daylight was no more useful than following it at night.

"Night, son."

A pain settled in his chest and he tried to lose himself in sleep.

**/**

Michonne's eyes followed the sway of the two walkers she kept on a chain as they trudged in front of her. _Is this all there is?_ She wondered, staring at the backs of their soft heads and bits of scapula revealed through rotting flesh. _Is living in this the only thing I have left to live for?_ Her sword pulled weightily at her back. She couldn't keep thinking thoughts like that. Or maybe she should. Thoughts were the only thing separating her from them.

~ Looking forward to reviews. :D


	3. Chapter 3

~ Thank you so much for reading my fictions and giving reviews. They really encourage me to put out new chapters and write even better just to hear back from you guys.~

**Chapter 3: Reason to Live**

The boots Rick wore were falling apart. He'd have to find a car soon if he didn't want to be crippled by the debris that peppered the edges of the highway. Walking in the grass offered some relief, but only some. A shard of glass would have left him limping and walker food if it hadn't gone through the heal of his boot where he still had some boot left. And snakes were a worry in the high, Georgia grass. And ticks. They could creep in without you knowing and have you flat on your back with some sickness you didn't even know the name of.

At least the weather was cooling down. That was one thing he could be grateful for. He didn't have to worry about sweating out what little liquid he could consume. Fall was coming down on him and he still hadn't managed to find his son.

He snapped off the limb of a nearby tree just to have something hurt besides him.

Rick thought he'd gotten close last month. He'd seen an RV shoved off to the side of the road. He'd rushed toward it before even registering that it was a newer model than the kind Dale had driven around. He'd shoved open the door, screaming his son's name, only to come face to face with a rotted and walking corpse. He'd shoved it back inside and simply closed the door. He hadn't had the strength to kill it.

Rick's eyes shifted to the vast forest he walked past day after day. What if the group had chosen to take up camp deep in the woods again rather than finding some home in what used to be civilization? What if he'd passed them miles back? What if Carl was already dead and eaten by those fucking human-sized vultures?

Rick shook his head, refusing to let those kind of dark thoughts rule his mind.

**/**

Michonne wrapped the chains holding what used to be her brother and her boyfriend around the post of an old, country-style store. Wood beams and slats everywhere.

She grunted when she noted the broken window, but hoped there would be something for her inside. Most places around there had been picked clean. This was her last hope in this town, otherwise she would have to go the next couple of miles on empty.

The next couple of miles to what, she didn't know. All she knew was that she had to be headed somewhere, for some reason, or else she might as well be as dead, or undead, as the men she kept on chains.

She pushed open the broken door of the store, her other hand held the katana she usually kept on her back. She surveyed all four corners of the small store before hesitantly stepping inside. Nothing as far as she could see, but there could be some lying on the floor between shelves or tucked in behind a counter.

Swiveling her head this way and that, her feet placed to either fight or flee, Michonne checked every crevice for a zombie. When she was sure that the cost was clear, she slipped her sword back into her sheath and headed toward the racks of boxes and metal hooks where bags of peanuts and pretzels used to hang. She sighed when she crunched over scattered bits of food where others had gotten too greedy, but continued to look.

She got lucky on a shelf at the very back of the store where canned goods used to sit. She grabbed up an old can of beef stew and the sad cans of vegetables surrounding it and tucked them into the the pouches sewn in the short cloak she used to hide her features and whatever supplies she managed to scavenge. She found a bottle of water rolled and caught under a shelf and used a strip of cloth to fashion a sling so she could carry it next to her canteen.

On her way out the door, Michonne checked the boxes lining the shelves closet to the counter and felt tension leave her shoulders when she saw a sugary, sweet candy bar tucked into the corner of a low box. She snatched it up and packed it away for later, her pace slightly less lethargic than it had been before.

It was the little things.

**/**

Rick found himself at a fork in the road, each destination just as likely as the other, and he felt despair seeping in, darkening the corners of his vision.

He pressed the pads of his fingers to the bridge of his nose, then looked up at the sun glaring down at him from overhead.

"What am I supposed to do?" He asked, laughing as he spun in a slow circle, surveying the trackless roads.

"What the HELL am I supposed to DO?" Rick screamed, not caring what might hear and come shambling out at him from the woods. Nothing mattered accept his one hope, and that didn't seem like it was going to get him very far. It was so easily taken away.

Rick stared down each road again, weighing one option against another. If he remembered correctly, one road led to a fairly small town but still had some nice houses. The other way was mostly farmland with the occasional spattering of houses and a large city further up.

"Which way would you take them, Shane?"

He settled his hands on his hips, waiting for an answer. When none came, he dropped down to his butt and folded his legs in front of him "Whichever way a walker comes from first, that's the way I won't go," he muttered.

**/**

Michonne froze at the edge of the woods. A main road cut through. She stared down at her hands and at the two walkers now trailing along behind her.

She blew a cold, hard breath through her nose and tugged on the zombies collars. The followed her with their slow pace out of the woods and onto the paved road, bits of their skin flaking off and falling to the ground like crumbs.

She kept one hand on the leash and the other moved the sweet candy bar from her mouth and to her side again and again.

One sweet sensation. She wanted more than that. Needed more that that if she was going to keep surviving. She couldn't stay chained to those stinking piles of cannibalistic flesh.

People. That would be good. She would find more people, then she would find a reason to live.

\- Hope you enjoy reading my fic. Looking forward to reviews. -


	4. Chapter 4

\- Thank you everyone for your reviews. They're something to look forward to everyday. I will take your opinions on the character's behavior into consideration.

**Chapter 4: Silence**

Rick didn't know how long he sat with the asphalt chilling beneath him and the sun sinking into nothing. He cracked open his last can of peas and drank the stock as water, saving the little green pods for later. His legs were starting to ache something awful, but distress held him still. If he walked in the wrong direction, he might never see his son again. At least when he had been walking down that one road, he could pretend to hold onto the certainty that he would see Carl again, but now…

He shook his head and flexed his fingers on the club-like stick he still carried around. It and the short knife in his belt were his only protection. Even if he had no more strength and no more hope, he still had to live. He had to know if his son was okay, or even if he wasn't. He had to live until he knew.

Darkness bloomed like ink on wet paper peppered with salt and the cool air made him pull the jacket he'd found in one of the cars a few miles behind him, tight. He tucked his chin against his chest and stared down at the road, listening for something. Anything.

Morning came before he heard anything. It started out like a soft fluttering, wings beating against a light bulb, then grew into the pull and scrape of something heavy being dragged by incapable hands.

Rick shot to his feet, his club in front of him. To the right, three walkers made their slow way toward him, two still in the grass on the edge of the road. The one he heard wore a pair of platform shoes so out of style he felt like he'd stepped onto the set of _Night of the Living Dead_.

He strapped his pack onto his back, keeping one hand on his weapon and one eye on the walkers as he turned in the opposite direction. "I guess I got my answer."

Rick was about ten steps down the road before a niggling sensation started in the back of his head. Something didn't feel quite right. The walkers. Wouldn't they be _more _active if something had disturbed them recently?

He turned back toward the shuffling walkers. No new ones had appeared. Just enough to head toward the road if they heard a few vehicles blow through, but not enough to deter the group if they'd wanted to go that way.

Rick glanced back over his shoulder and shook his head, praying to God that he was right.

He sucked in a breath and picked up his stick, swinging it hard into the skull of the platform-shoe wearing walker closest to him. An old woman was next, her skull softer than the other. He'd swung, expecting more resistance and nearly ended up on the ground in front of the third walker. He managed to regain his balance, just as the decayed arms reached out to him. He swung his club, but didn't have enough distance to pick up the right amount of momentum and ended up just denting the side of the walker's skull. A strangled breath rattled in it's throat and it came at him with greater ferocity, dragging him to the ground.

Rick felt his adrenaline sky-rocket as he dropped his club and fought to get to the knife in his belt while keeping the walker's teeth at bay with his forearm. Rank blood dripped from the walker's head wound and seared along the side of his face, causing him to flinch and turn away.

_Scheiiiick!_

Rick gasped, then chocked when dead blood hit his tongue as the walker's head flew away from it's body.

He blinked up at the blue sky over the gaping neck of the twice-dead beast. _What…? Do their heads just pop off on their own these days?_

A sharp pain in his side quickly brought him back to reality. _Did I get bit?_ He panicked, rolling the walker's body off of him and propping himself on his knees, feeling at his side for a wound.

_Shieiick!_

Rick's hands froze on his waist, the he slowly raised them up and over his head. The sharp point of a blade rested a mere inch from the bridge of his nose. He followed the silver gleam up the length, to the hilt, and the dark hand that held it.

He dropped slowly backward onto his butt when he caught sight of the fierce, and scowling face, shadowed further by a hood, that belonged to the hand.

"Ma'am," he said slowly. "I…I thank you for saving me."

**/**

Michonne tilted her head at the man crouched on the ground in front of her. Blood and a scraggle of beard hid most of his face from view, but sharp, blue eyes showed her that this man was not as cowed by her sword as he acted.

She took a step away from him and slipped her katana into it's sheath. It caused the chain she clasped in her other hand to rattle with the movement, and she knew when the man caught sight of her walkers.

His eyes went wide and he looked at her like she was the craziest thing he'd ever seen. For some reason his eyes went to the walker she'd killed, back to her, to the walkers she kept on a chain, and back to her again.

"Those things are dangerous," he rasped out, a country drawl making his words hard to understand. "You shouldn't be keeping them on chains like - like pets!"

Michonne looked at her brother and her boyfriend, then back at the man on the ground. Of course she knew they were dangerous. That's why she'd taken their jaws and their teeth.

She shuffled back when the man got to his feet, but he made calming motions to her like she was a child. "Look, Ma'am. I see that you know some walkers need killin', so you know that if those two you got on your chain were family, they ain't anymore."

Michonne's brow furrowed as the man kept making his way toward her, making his voice softer and more reasonable.

"Now, I know it might hurt, and if you can't do it, I will. But you can't keep those things with you."

The man reached for a knife in his belt and Michonne automatically drew her sword again. He put his hands up and looked at her with disbelief. "You can't be protecting those things!"

Michonne gestured toward his knife with her sword and pointed to the ground. His eyes checked her stance and her grip before he sighed and put his knife on the dark asphalt.

"Ma'am, I'm just trying to help you like you helped me."

Michonne flicked his knife away with the tip of her sword. Warning the man to be still with her eyes, Michonne moved toward him to check him for any other hidden weapons and bites. She rifled through his pack and gently patted him down from his waist to the top of his boots.

"I ain't carrying anymore weapons."

Michonne just glared at him and poked at his shirt where there were blood stains.

"I ain't bit."

She ignored him and raised his shirt a bit. A dark bruise sat where she'd kicked him a lot harder than she probably should have.

"I told you I wasn't bit."

She sheathed her sword and looked up at the sky. The sun was almost to the midpoint so she could get a lot more walking in today.

She turned and began walking in the direction she'd been headed before the grunting and groaning of this white man had distracted her.

"Ma'am-"

His hand landed on her shoulder and her sword was in her hand and grazing his arm before Michonne barely registered what had happened.

She gasped and stepped back while the man wrapped his left forearm in the tight grip of his right hand, a mix of disbelief and chagrin on his face.

"I'm sorry. That was stupid of me. I should have known better, out here."

Michonne closed her eyes when the grunts of her half-faceless zombies began to escalate now that fresh, human blood scented the air. She took a deep breath and in one clean stroke, sent their hands spinning to the ground. She dropped the chain in her other hand and grabbed the man's wounded arm.

"You did the right thing, killing those things, those walkers. It's not safe to have them around, even if they ain't got no teeth."

Michonne pushed up his sleeve while he kept babbling, sucking in a breath when she saw that she'd cut him to the bone. If he'd been a walker, his hand _and_ his head would have been gone.

"If you hadn't come along when you had, I might've been one of those things right now."

She pulled out a small bottle of alcohol she kept in one of her packets for emergencies and splashed a bit on his arm.

"Shit!"

She quickly wrapped it with a strip of cloth from a wad she kept as bandages and head-wraps.

After she tied the knot tight to stop the bleeding, the man laid his hand on top of hers before she could snatch it away, his blue eyes piercing down into hers. "What's your name, ma'am? How'd you make it out here by yourself?"

When she didn't answer, he titled his head and leaned in closer, sounding concerned. "What's your name?"

He waited, staring her down. "I'm Rick Grimes," he offered.

Michonne glanced at the decayed bodies of her brother and her boyfriend, up the long road she'd been walking toward nothing, then into the sharp eyes, bluer than the sky, of the man in front of her. She signed. "Michonne."

-Looking forward to your reviews. I'll be getting to what's happening with Lori, Shane, and Carl in the next chapter.


	5. Chapter 5

**\- **Thanks so much for the reviews guys. I'll get a bit more into Michonne's attitude toward Rick and some of her motivations later.

**Chapter 5: On the Road**

"We've been driving for hours."

Everyone turned to Glenn, giving him harsh stares for reminding them that they'd been sitting on their butts for nearly an entire day without moving. Just uttering the words had caused nerve endings that people had thought numb, to fire crackles of pain across their asses.

Glenn hunkered down in his seat and pulled his hat low over his eyes. "Sorry," he muttered.

Lori shook her head and draped her arm across Carl's shoulders. The boy looked withdrawn, his face pinched and pale. She'd been having trouble getting him to eat…when they could find something to eat.

"Are you alright?"

Carl shrugged at her arm, trying to get her to move it. "I'm fine."

Lori glanced up at Shane. He had his face pointed toward the window, but she could tell he wasn't really admiring the passing landscape. There was nothing new to see anyway. Everything was trees, road, piles of cars, the dead, and then just again but in reverse.

"Soon we're going to find something. Somewhere we rest. Have good food. And maybe play some baseball. You'd like that?"

Carl scrunched down in his seat and closed his eyes.

Lori sighed. "I'm sorry, baby."

**/**

Shane shifted his head and studied Lori out of the side of his eyes. He could see lines around the corners of her mouth from her constantly clenching her jaw; something she always did when she kept words in that she wanted to say. Her eyes were red again this morning and there were spots of pink rimming them where she'd scrubbed at them to clear them before he woke up.

His gut twisted and he pulled his eyes away. They were together, but not the way they had been before Rick. She let him hold her, touch her, hell, do anything he wanted to her, but she didn't look at him the same. He could do without all of that other stuff if she would just look at him the way she used to. And Carl…

Shane ran a hand over his head, patchy from when he'd shaved it almost bald, and saw the moment when Rick had gone down. When he'd taken Rick down. There'd been blood. Rick's blood. On his hands.

His fist pinched tight on his leg.

Rick had been there for him in the past like no one else. Had stood by him and defended him through all his scrapes, even when Rick _knew_ that he was responsible for them and might get in trouble right along with him.

But when no one was there for Rick, Shane had taken his chance.

**/**

"Where you headed?" Rick asked the dark-skinned woman after he finally got her name out of her.

She folded her arms over her chest and cocked her head back so she could look up at him.

Rick shifted under her direct, silent, and hostile stare. How could someone nearly a foot shorter than him manage to intimidate him so much?

"I was headed up the road, this way." He pointed toward the road speckled with a few walkers wandering in the distance. "I'm trying to catch up with some people I know." He didn't know this woman well enough to give her any specifics. She'd been wondering around with two walkers on leashes like they were the new chihuahua, and now she was giving Rick the silent treatment worse than Carl when he'd taken away his bicycle privileges for a week because he'd biked down to his school friend's house without telling anybody and had been gone until nearly midnight playing camp.

"I don't know what kind of person you are, but you saved me, so that tells me a little something right there," Rick continued, feeling like a fool for talking to himself. "If where you're going don't got people, then you can come with me. They'd be welcoming to you."

When she didn't move away from him or try to attack him again, Rick took that as agreement. He couldn't say that he wasn't relieved - even silent company was better than no company.

"There's a can of peas a couple of steps back that way that I didn't get to finish. That is, if they didn't get knocked over or bled on in the scuffle. I'm willing to share."

Michonne reached into her cape and drew out a candy bar with a label he couldn't read, and a bottle of water.

Rick grinned and shook his head. "Well, I guess that takes care of that."

He walked back down the road a bit, glancing over his shoulder to make sure Michonne was following. She was. Slowly, and keeping her eyes on the woods and the distant walkers.

"I'm sure I can finish my can of peas before they reach us."

"Or you can walk and eat."

Rick was so shocked that she'd spoken again, that at first he didn't respond. He spent so long blinking that Michonne snatched the can up from where it sat waiting at his feet, and shoved it into his hands, splashing a pea against his blood-stained shirt and ill-fitting jacket.

"Uh-" he managed to get out as he scurried to keep up with her long, athletic strides.

"Get your pack."

He was so startled that he did just that, staying right on her heels. "Listen, Mich.. Michonne?"

She nodded without slowing.

"I think it's a good idea if we rest first. You just got through killing all those walkers. You're probably tired."

She picked up speed as if to prove him wrong.

He almost put a hand on her shoulder to slow her down, but the throbbing pain in his left arm reminded him why that wasn't a good idea. "And I need to find a weapon that I can used with just one hand that would kill a walker without me having to get too close. I'm a good shot, but I don't think we're going to find any guns out here. And if we do, they won't have any worthwhile amount of ammo."

Rick scooped his little knife from the ground and shoved it back into it's case at his belt. "You listening to me? Hey!"

Michonne only sped up, forcing him to jog to catch up before he could walk next to her.

Rick huffed, his days of barely eating catching up to him. "Slow down."

Spots danced in front of his eyes, the short fight earlier had taken more out of him than he'd thought. Coupled with the loss of blood, he would soon be on his ass. "Michonne!"

She finally pulled up short and looked over her shoulder at him, her expression hard.

Rick glanced down at the ground, hating to admit his weakness, but knowing he couldn't travel very far today. "I'm sorry if you're in some kind of hurry, but I don't… I don't think I can make it much further." When she scowled, he held out his forearm, shaking it in the air. "I lost a lot of blood today and I've barely eaten for a while. I just… I just don't have the strength," he finished weakly on a breath.

Michonne crossed her arms in front of her chest and blinked around at the landscape.

Rick thought she was contemplating taking off without him; and while he didn't feel any particular affection for her, another human being was welcome right now.

"Do you think you can make it just a little bit further? Until we can find you some shelter?"

Rick smiled gratefully. "Yes, ma'am."

Her eyes narrowed. "Don't call me ma'am," she muttered.

**/**

"What's that? Down there?"

Dale turned his head to see where Glenn was pointing. A glitter could be seen through the thick limbs of trees hedging the side of the road. He slowed the RV to a stop and watched as the glint seemed to flicker and shift.

"Could be water," he said hopefully.

Glenn chuckled and clapped Dale on the shoulder. "I'm going to get out and see."

Shane stood up from where he'd been pretending to sleep. "I'll come with you. If there's a walker's out there, you shouldn't be wandering around alone."

Glenn nodded and took a gun from the stash kept in a duffle up near Dale's seat.

"Can I go, too?" Carl asked, surprising Shane.

"What?"

Carl looked at his mother. "I'm tired of sitting on this bus. I want to go outside."

Lori glanced up at Shane and quickly looked at her son again. "Yeah, babe. Just stay close to Shane and do what he says, alright?"

Carl glared at Shane. "Alright."

**/**

Michonne opened the back door of a large, blue van and leaned inside, checking for walkers. She then walked around to the front and peeped in the drivers window, then opened the door to check the area between the dash and the floor boards. A small walker could easily be hiding in that tight space, just waiting for an unsuspecting victim to come along. Finding it empty, she went back to Rick. He was pale and breathing shallowly. Sweat beaded on his forehead from the effort of walking.

"It's clean," she said, gesturing toward the van. She opened the back door again and waved for him to get inside. "There's a few paint cans scattered in there, but there should be enough space for you to lay down and stay out of sight of any walkers passing through."

Rick nodded and tried to get inside the van gracefully, but his arms didn't have the strength to support him, so he ended up rolling inside instead.

Michonne tried to pretend she didn't notice that, or the light blush that stained his cheeks. He seemed like the type who didn't want to admit any weakness or the inability to take care of himself. He'd had a hard enough time telling her he didn't think he could keep traveling.

When she moved to close the door, he reached out and grabbed her wrist. "Where are you going?"

"You need food. Water. I'll be back."

He shook his head and made to leave the van, but she pushed him back inside. "You can't go alone!" He protested.

"I'll be back," Michonne said again, more firmly. He made to move out of the van again, his chin solid and stubborn. Michonne let out a breath and shook her head. "If you think you can be more help to me than by just being walker food out here, then come on."

She held the door wide open and grimaced as he struggled to get back to his feet and step out of the van. When he kept falling back down, his shoulders slumped and she saw that he finally admitted defeat. She also saw that it cost him because he didn't look up at her. Michonne reached into her cloak and pulled out the can of beef stew she'd found at the convenience store a few miles back. She rolled it toward Rick and closed the van door behind her, twisting the old-fashioned handle so it would lock.


	6. Chapter 6

\- Your reviews are really helpful. Thanks for always being polite, even with the critiques. Looking forward to more.

**Chapter 6: Leaning**

Rick crouched in the back of the van, stubbornly ignoring the can of beef stew for as long as he could, before sighing and popping the top. It was a bit of a struggle, but he manged it with it clasped between his knees. The possibility of poison was low since it was a sealed can and the woman had worked so hard to save him in the first place.

He titled the can against his lips and had nearly gulped it all down before remembering that when Michonne got back, she would probably be hungry too. And if she hadn't managed to find any supplies, then what he had would be all she had left. He looked regretfully down into the can, then sat it aside.

_How long has she been gone?_ He wondered and hoped to God he hadn't imagined her. A woman with a sword and two walkers on the chain, yep, it sounded like something that could come out of his sleep, food, and water-deprived imagination.

Rick painfully shifted to his knees and peeked out of the fogged, and dirty window, trying to see outside. Trying to see if there was any sign of Michonne getting back.

Nothing.

And now it was dark, so he could barely see the line of trees nearly a foot away from the van.

Disappointed, he reluctantly lay down on the floor of the cold van, tucked his jacket under his head, and did his best to fall asleep.

**/**

"We can't keep doing this," Carol said, blinking around at the group and keeping her voice low. She didn't want to bring Shane's attention down on her. "I don't think Lori can take much more. Hell, I don't even know if I can take much more."

Maggie, a pretty girl who had helped them escape from her father's overrun farm, glanced over at Shane. "I think he already knows that. He's probably doing his best."

Dale, sitting on an overturned box shook his head in disgust. "Hell."

"What?" Carol asked.

Dale just continued to shake his head, wanting to tell them what he knew about Shane, but was afraid of what the knowledge might do to the group. Hardly anyone else was sharp enough or fit enough to lead, and at least Shane _seemed _to have the desire to keep them all alive as long as he was able. As long as it was easier than killing them all.

Carol's brow knit in a frustrated frown and she turned to Daryl who was skinning some small animal she hoped wasn't a rat. "We can't just keep scavenging for food like this. Lori needs to eat healthy to take care of that baby."

Daryl glared over at the woman in question. "Nobody asked her to get pregnant. Shoot. Lord knows we could move a lot faster if she weren't."

Carol gasped. "You can't mean that."

He scowled in disbelief. "You think I would do somethin' to a pregnant lady?"

"No. I didn't mean - I was just…"

"Shit. I'm just saying it would be better if we didn't have to worry about feeding her or keeping her away from the walkers. She can't move fast with little Shane growing in there."

Carol tsked and shook her head at that.

"She didn't even wait 'til he was cold," Daryl continued. He'd liked Rick. He was a pretty good tracker and actually cared about people. Shane, on the other hand. Shane reminded him of his father.

**/**

Rick twitched and banged his head on the side of the van when a scuffling sound at the door alerted him awake. He pulled out his little knife and shifted toward the door.

"It's me," he heard a voice call softly.

He relaxed back against the wall as Michonne opened the door and climbed in, closing the door tightly behind herself. She had a pack with her that was nearly as tall as she was.

"What's that?"

She took it off and pushed it to the floor, then sat a bag she'd had slung across her chest down beside it.

"Supplies. I found a hiker in the woods and further up, his camp. I grabbed everything he had."

"You're not cold?" he asked, noticing for the first time that she only wore a thin, purple tank under a brown vest.

She just shrugged and began to riffle through the smaller bag. "I got some bandages and some water. A few antibiotics just to make sure you don't get an infection."

She pulled his arm toward her and began to unwrap the makeshift bandage she'd used on it earlier. Rick studied her face while she worked. She had hard dark eyes, but her full lips were pinched in concentration while she worked.

"How long have you been alone out here?"

Michonne shrugged, her muscled arms rippling in the moonlight. "I don't know. A couple of months."

She poured more alcohol on his wound without warning him and he flinched back, barely holding in a curse.

"And you managed to make it by yourself?" he asked, half impressed and half skeptical. For someone who'd been wandering around alone, she barely had a scratch on her, and while there were holes in her clothes, they weren't in terrible shape.

"Yeah," she stated, not even halfway quenching his curiosity.

"Where'd you learn how to use a sword?"

"Out there," she said, gesturing with her head toward the world at large. She tied the bandage tight on his arm to keep the wound closed so it could knit back together, then rocked back onto her knees. She handed him two pills and a bottle of water. "Just to make sure you don't get sick from that."

Rick swallowed down the pills, though he was much more grateful for the water. "Thank you," he said, once he'd finally had his fill, leaning the bottle toward her.

She waved it away and instead propped her back against the door of the van, letting out a sigh of exhaustion.

He reached to his side and shifted the half-eaten can of beef stew toward her. "I saved you some."

Michonne's teeth glinted briefly in the darkness, and he realized that he'd just seen her smile for the first time.

"Thank you," she said, taking the can and pouring it down her throat, chewing on the bits of meat with extra relish.

Rick tapped at the floor of the van. The metal tinking against his fingernails relieved the awkward silence a bit.

"So… were you with a group? Before?"

Michonne shook her head, her expression closed.

"Um… were you heading to meet your people or, or were those walkers it?"

Her eyes glittered at him in the darkness like the unknowable night sky over head.

"If you ain't got nowhere to be, or nobody looking for ya, you could stick with me. Or I could stick with you," he said with a winning smile. When Michonne didn't even crack a nerve he chuckled a bit to himself. "We could stick together. Even a stranger has got to be better than nothing at all, right? And since you saved my life, I'll have to assume you won't try to stick me in the back with that sword of yours the minute I fall asleep."

"Your neck."

"What?"

"I'd stick it in your neck. I can't leave another walker to wander around."

Rick studied Michonne's face, trying to figure out if she was joking or not. She didn't bat an eyelash, so all he had to go on was hope. He hoped he didn't end up separated from his head any time soon. Plus, she'd worked pretty hard to make sure he would live. She couldn't be as hard as she seemed.

"So, how 'bout it?"

She fiddled with the half-gloves on her hands. "What are your people like?"

"Like any people," he admitted. "Some are nice, some not. The nice outweigh the not-so-nice."

"And why aren't you with them right now?"

Her eyes were deep and intelligent, and he had to look away from them.

"Me and a friend of mine had a bit of a disagreement."

"Over what?"

His mouth turned down in a bitter grimace and a cold light entered his eyes. "My wife."

**/**

"Hey, Carl. Carl, come here."

Carl trundled over to Shane, his face cold. "What?"

Shane gritted his teeth, but there was nothing he could do about Carl's attitude. He'd kept the boy alive when Rick couldn't, but apparently none of that mattered to him. "Has your mama eaten today?"

Carl shook his head. "The smell of the squirrel Daryl caught made her sick."

Shane punched the wall, causing Carl to jump. Daryl shifted a bit on his stool and angled himself to watch the two.

"Don't she know she's got to eat. We don't live in the time of fancy restaurants no more."

"She can't help it!" Carl shouted.

Shane turned and glared down at him. "Keep your voice down, boy. I'm getting mighty tired of how you been looking at me. I'm doing everything I can for our family."

Carl's chin tilted down at a stubborn angle and he looked remarkably like his father at that moment. "We're not your family."

Shane clamped his hand down on Carl's shoulder and Daryl moved over to them.

"Hey, Carl. Want to go out with me and I show you how to shoot my crossbow? If your mama don't like squirrel, how 'bout we see how she feels 'bout rabbit?"

Carl turned to get his gun from where he'd left it to be cleaned by Carol.

Shane stepped in front of Daryl. "Keep you eye on him. That boy got a habit of wandering off and not listening to what's best for him."

Daryl sucked on his tongue then spat on the floor, barely missing Shane's boot. "Yeah. I'll keep an eye on him. You ready, lil' man?" He shouted over his shoulder.

Carl nodded and raced over to the door. "Hurry up! I've always wanted to use that thing."

"It ain't no 'thing'. It's a crossbow."

"Whatever."

"Brat."

**/**

"Are you sure it's okay?" Lori asked Carol, watching her son disappear into the woods with the gruff woodsman.

"Yeah," Carol said with a soft smile. "He's taffy," she smirked.

"What?"

Carol eyes glittered with humor. "He acts tough, but he's a real sweetie."

"Ch." Lori chuckled at Carol's bad joke. "If you say so."

Carol caught Shane staring longingly at Lori from the side of her eye and felt a nervous tick start in her hand. That man just made her plain uncomfortable. "What about Shane? What's he?"

Lori shifted her eyes toward him and shook her head sadly. "I don't know, but whatever it is, it changes the longer you hold it in your mouth. It started out real sweet, but I swear ain't nothing left but lemon."

"Lemon always tastes a little better with a bit of sugar in it." She patted Lori's stomach lightly and Lori squeezed her eyes shut.

"I'm so worried about this baby. If anything, it's going to make things worse. You see how he is with just trying to take care of me. With this baby…" she trailed off. "If it's his." Shut put a shaking hand over her mouth. "If it has Rick's eyes?"

Carol pulled the frightened and trapped woman into her arms and stroked her back gently. "It's going to be okay."

"Is it?"

"No. Be we have to keep saying it."

**/**

"Maybe I should spend a night sleeping up front," Rick said, staring up at the ceiling of the van and listening to Michonne settle into the leaning passenger seat.

"Why?"

"Doesn't your back hurt from being bent up like that all night?"

Michonne pounded the cushioned seat with the palm of her hand and shook her head. "Nope."

Rick sighed and tried to shift so that the ridge of corrugated metal no longer aligned exactly with his spine and tail-bone. "And your knees have to to be cramping from that angle you keep them at."

"They aren't."

Rick took off his jacket and folded it so it created a little bit of padding for his head and rolled onto his left side since his right felt bruised from sleeping on it the previous night. He'd already done his back enough damage, so tonight it was time for his left. If only the driver's seat leaned too, then he wouldn't have to suffer through this. And it was the gentlemanly thing to do to let the woman have the most comfortable bed.

"Why? That floor starting to bite ya?"

Now that she mentioned it, the floor did poke at him like flat teeth. "Yeah," he admitted. "Yeah it is."

"Well, when you're finally strong enough for us to leave this van, then _you_ get to pick the next place you sleep. Deal?"

Rick signed and closed his eyes, realizing that Michonne wasn't going to give in and let him have the passenger seat. "Deal," he grunted.

Michonne smiled in the dark and stretched her arms - it felt good to have someone to pick on.


	7. Chapter 7

\- Thank you focusedOnProsperity and Kam for being consistent reviewers. It helps make me feel like I'm keeping things going in the right direction.

**Chapter 7: Left Behind**

"Be careful," Michonne told Rick as he scouted slightly ahead of her in the woods. He'd been feeling better, but she still thought he looked a little under the weather. When he glanced at her over his shoulder, she knew that she'd annoyed him. "Watch your feet. We can't have you tripping."

"I'm fine," he groaned.

"And watch your head. If you run into another branch, you might end up out cold for more than a few minutes this time."

A blush rose high on Rick's cheeks at the mention of his first foray out into the woods after his arm had healed. He'd been so focused on proving that he wasn't as helpless as he'd looked that he'd ended up jogging headfirst into a tree and had woken up with his head on Michonne's knee. Since then, she'd been treating him like he shouldn't be walking around without training wheels.

Michonne chuckled under her breath when she realized she'd gotten a reaction. It was just too easy. "And keep your eye out for a walker with your size feet. I can see your toes poking through the top of your boots."

Rick glanced down and immediately regretted it. He felt a twig graze the top of his head, catching on his hair. He stopped short on the trail and put his hands on his waist, more frustrated than he'd been in a long time. He pushed the stick away from his head and glared at Michonne. She blinked up at him in innocent concern.

"All your chatter is going to bring walkers."

"All your tripping over twigs and rocks is really what's attracting them."

Rick rubbed the bridge of his nose, feeling a headache coming on.

"Michonne, this is serious. We're in real danger out here."

"I'm just trying to make sure you stay safe."

"I can take care of myself."

She patted him lightly on the arm and started walking ahead of him. "Sure you can."

Rick watched her back and slowly followed after her. "Are you playing with me?"

Her shoulders shook up and down slightly and Rick stopped in his tracks again.

"Michonne."

She shrugged at him and kept walking. "It's not like we've got t.v."

Rick shook his head in disbelief and hurried to catch up to her, this time walking by her side, his hand on the long blade he kept at his waist. Michonne had brought it back for him after one of her scouting trips, and it hung almost to his knee. "Did you used to watch a lot of t.v.? You know? Before?"

Michonne shrugged, keeping her eyes on their surroundings. "About as much as everybody else."

"What did you used to be?"

She looked up at the sun to check their position. "Doesn't matter now."

Rick hitched a shoulder. "Sometimes what a person did can tell you what kind of person they _are._"

"Can it really?" she asked. She paused and looked at him. "What if I told you I was a school teacher?"

"I wouldn't believe it," he responded immediately.

"Why not? Aren't I warm and fluffy enough?"

Rick grinned. "You're about as warm and fluffy as a panther on a bed of hot coals."

"Wow."

"What?"

"Have you gotten _more_ country since I rescued you or is it just being in the woods? I swear, if you had a hat you'd be tipping it at me."

Rick's eyes fell to the ground and Michonne knew she'd said something that hurt, but couldn't figure out what. "What is it?"

He scratched at his hair and rubbed the tip of his nose. "I used to have one."

"Used to? What happened to it?" _Why is he getting so broken up over a hat?_

He shuffled his feet in the fallen leaves, crisp and brittle from the winter air, and decided that he might as well tell Michonne everything. She'd taken care of him, fed him, saved him more times than he could count, and she seemed to be genuinely curious. "Let's find a safe place, first."

Michonne nodded with some concern, but followed him deeper into the woods, always edging along the highway and the van they'd left behind a few days ago after it had been surrounded by walkers.

**/**

"It's getting colder," Hershal whispered, leaning in toward Shane. "I know you're doing your best, but we're running out of places we can run to. We've holed up in this place twice this winter and the food is almost gone."

Shane slammed his fist down on the counter he was leaning against and glared at Hershal. "You know what would solve our food problem?"

"What?" Hershal asked, hoping Shane had figured out a solution to their problem.

A hard gleam entered Shane's eye and he bore down on Hershal, causing the much older man to lean back and away from him. "Fewer people," he rasped.

Hershal felt a shot of panic flood his system, but he refused to let it show on his face. "I'm sure there's just not something we've thought of yet. We can send someone out scouting for some place we haven't been."

Shane was about to shut Hershal down, but suddenly his grin turned wolfish. He glanced over to where Daryl was showing Carl how to hold a knife so he could throw it. Those two had been spending way too much time together. And he didn't like the look on Lori's face when she watched the two together either.

"Hey, Daryl," he called, getting the younger man's attention.

"What?!" Daryl shouted, without turning around.

A hard line set in Shane's face and he stomped over to the duo. He shoved Daryl hard in the back. "Is that how you talk to me? Are you the one who's been teaching Carl to talk to me like that?"

Daryl grabbed Shane by the collar and pulled him close. "Why don't you tell me what you want then get out of my face?"

Lori moved to her feet and pushed herself between the two, pressing her palms against their chests. "Can you _not _fight?! Everybody's tired and this won't make things any better."

Shane pulled away from Lori's touch and slapped at Daryl's hand until he removed it. "Trying to protect your little boyfriend?"

"What?" Daryl chuffed in disbelief.

"You think I don't see the way you look at him?" Shane asked, poking his finger at Lori's face. Her wide shocked eyes stared back at him in confusion. He grabbed her by the arm. "Don't play innocent."

"Hey!" Daryl shouted, grabbing Lori's other arm and moving her away from Shane. Carl moved in front of her, his dagger drawn. "Ain't nothing going on between me and her. We all practically live on top of each other's asses so you'd know it if it were."

Shane glared around the room of withdrawn and suspicious eyes and rubbed a hand over his face, trying to bring his expression down to something close to normal. "You're right. You're right. I'm sorry," he added, catching eyes with Lori. "I was wrong."

"So what'd you call me for?" Daryl asked, to take Shane's unpredictable focus off of the little family crowding behind him.

Shane squeezed his eyes shut, trying to remember. "I need you to scout for a safe place for us."

"Alone?"

"What, you can't handle it?" Shane asked with a smirk, hitching the bag of guns he kept on his shoulder.

Daryl glanced around the room at worried eyes; people worried for him, and people worried about what Shane would do if Daryl said something wrong and set him off. He shifted his eyes to Carl and some of that worry began to settle within himself. What would happen to the boy if he left? What would happen if he stayed?

He caught Glenn's eye, silently asking him to watch over Carl while he was gone. Glenn nodded and Daryl lowered his head. "I can handle it."

"Good," Shane said with a triumphant smile.

Daryl waited for Shane to hand him some supplies. "You're not going to give me a gun?"

Shane shook his head with fake regret. "I need all of the ammo and weapons to make sure the people here stay safe. You've got your cross bow, and I've seen you with a knife."

Daryl gritted his teeth, knowing he was being sent on a suicide mission. "Ch." He turned toward Carl and bumped his fist lightly against the boys. "I'll see you in a few days with a nice place all ready for your mama."

Carl nodded. "Bye, Daryl."

"Siya, punk."

**/**

"That looks good," Michonne said, pointing toward a wood cabin, slapped together on cinder blocks and barely surviving the encroaching plants eating away at its surface.

Rick frowned at Michonne uncertainly, then smiled a little. "You definitely weren't an architect or an interior decorator."

Michonne grinned and jogged in front of him to the house, scanning under it for any walkers, then climbing lightly up onto the sloping porch.

"I'll check around back and enter through the back door."

Michonne nodded and Rick went off to make sure no walkers had clumped together behind the building.

Michonne checked the windows to make sure they were secure. They'd been glass, but they had been broken and boarded up what seemed a long time ago judging by how much the wood had split and soaked up the rust around the nails. She tapped lightly on the front door to see if she could hear some walkers coming to attention. When she heard nothing, she turned the knob of the door to see if it was unlocked. She jumped slightly when the knob fell apart in her hands and rattled against the floor, but the door swung inward without any problems.

She rose from her crouching position and moved into the front hallway, quickly checking all the cracks, crevices, and hiding places behind all of the furniture. Rick popped up from a side room and nodded at her.

"Clear."

"Let's get these chairs and dressers against the doors."

Rick huffed and puffed as he moved a molding chair across the wavy floor boards of the dilapidated house. "Does 'we' mean just me in your vocabulary?"

Michonne grinned at his back. "I thought you wanted to prove to me you were fit enough not to be coddled."

He squinted his eyes at her and she flexed her biceps.

"Besides, I'm weaker than I look."

Rick outright chuckled and went back to pushing the chair, realizing he wasn't going to get any help.

Michonne disappeared into one of the side rooms and he could hear her fiddling around with things. When he finally had the doors blocked off, he wandered in to see what Michonne was doing. He propped his elbow against the door frame of what had been a bedroom and shook his head at her when he saw her lying down on an old mattress, her feet propped up on a bundle of musty and rotting cloth.

"The only bed in the house looks like this, and you're still going to take it?"

"Finder's keepers."

Rick found himself smiling. Now that Michonne was talking more, he had to say that there was absolutely nothing that scary about her; besides the way she used that sword.

He wiggled his toes at her, then pointed to where he'd tossed his boot to a corner at the head of the bed after he'd first entered the house. "I found it first."

Michonne's face fell and she sighed, making to move up from the bed, but Rick held out his hand to stop her and plopped down on the lumpy mattress beside her, also propping his feet on the cloth pile she'd made for herself. He put his arms behind his head and Michonne relaxed back too.

"So, you gonna finally tell me about that hat?"


	8. Chapter 8

~ Hi, Kam. To answer your question, yes, this is a Richonne fic. I like to write relationships that build slowly and sweetly though :D.

**Chapter 8: Fortitude**

Rick blinked up at the dark ceiling a few feet overhead, listening to the silence beside him - Michonne waiting for him to speak.

He sucked in a breath to calm the shaking that had started in his chest. "I was a sheriff in my hometown before all this."

Michonne was about to make a joke about that, but decided now wasn't the best time. He seemed to be trying to tell her something very important to him.

"One day, my partner and I were out on a call. I was shot twice. I ended up in the hospital." His fingers pressed at his brow, remembering the confusion and disorientation from that time. "I didn't wake up until all of this had started," he said, gesturing around. "I went stumbling out of my hospital room, looking for someone, anyone." He shook his head. "All I found were the dead. So I raced home. I needed to know if they were safe."

"Who?" Michonne asked, figuring she knew.

"My wife," he said softly, then more hoarsely, "My son."

Michonne pinched her lips together and closed her eyes.

"They weren't there, but their things were packed, so I figured they'd gotten out somehow."

"What did you do?"

"I set out to find them. A man found me while I was stumbling around. A man and his son. He helped me get some weapons and a few other supplies. I started out in a car, ended up on a horse-" He broke off when he heard Michonne chuckle. "What?"

"Nothing," she said, tapping his arm with her elbow. "Go on."

He sighed and rubbed his eyes. "Anyway, I headed toward Atlanta where I heard some camps had been set up, but the place was overrun."

"Your family wasn't there?"

"Naw. But there were these other people there. People scouting for supplies for the rest of their group. They ended up saving me, taking me in." He smiled painfully, remembering. "The camp they took me back to, my family was there. My little boy."

"What's his name?"

"Carl," Rick said with a smile. "His name's Carl."

Michonne turned her head, trying to see his face in the darkness. "How did you end up getting separated from them? Or…"

"No," Rick broke in. "He's not dead. He can't be. I refuse to believe it until - until… No. He's not dead." He took a few deep breaths, trying to calm himself. "A group of walkers surrounded the camp we were at, so we had to move. Then one of the campers lost her little girl, and we were out looking for her, me, my friend, Carl. He got shot, but we were lucky enough that the guy who shot him knew someone who could help." He passed his hand over his face. "We thought we were safe there for a while. We thought we'd found a home."

The pain in Rick's voice told Michonne that things hadn't gone exactly as planned.

"I let my guard down. I forgot that people could be as bad as these walkers. Worse. Apparently, while I'd bee lying helpless in a coma, my partner, my friend, my brother, had been screwing my wife. I didn't know it at the time, although I feel like I should've. You know when you can just feel something isn't right?"

Michonne nodded.

"Carl was getting better. I'd given him my hat as a kind of present. He'd always liked to sneak and put it on when he was just a toddler. Anyway, he was up and around again. So to celebrate, I thought me and Lori, that's my wife, I thought we could go and have some private time. Move toward fixing the problems in our relationship. We were out in the woods, kissing and-"

"I don't think I need to know every detail."

Rick blushed. "Right." He cleared his throat. "Anyway, we were out there together, then all of a sudden, there's pain, and I'm down. Before I pass out, I open my eyes and I see my best friend walking off with my wife."

"Damn."

"When I was finally conscious and made it back to our camp, everything was gone. There were bodies everywhere. Mostly walkers. But still…"

Michonne turned on her side and rested a sympathetic hand on his shoulder. "So you don't know?"

"No. But I will."

Michonne nodded and rolled back onto her back. She seemed lost in thought, and at first, Rick thought she was going to tell him her story, but instead she said, "I'll help you."

Rick smiled a little in the dark. "I'd hoped you wouldn't abandon me just because I have an impossible goal."

Michonne shook her head. "Not impossible. The world is only so big."

Her words settled on Rick like a balm. She'd offered no false promises, nor had she completely taken away his hope. She'd only stated the truth. The world really was only so big.

"What about you?" he asked Michonne. "What are you doing wandering around alone? You seem capable of handling yourself."

"I wasn't always like this," she said quietly. She rolled onto her side, her back to him, facing the wall. "And this ain't story time."

Rick sucked on his teeth for a few moments, feeling bad for causing Michonne pain. Whatever her burden was, she wasn't ready to unload it, or share it. At least, not yet.

"Are you going to at least tell me how you're managing to block out the scent of this mattress?" he asked, wrinkling his nose.

"I don't know what scent you're talking about. I don't think I have that sense anymore after walking downwind of _you_ all week."

_Well, that seems to have made her feel better_.

**/**

"Do you think Daryl's okay?" Carl asked his mother while he rubbed a sharpening stone over the edge of his knife. It had been a week and the hunter hadn't yet returned.

Lori looked at Carol as she kissed her son on the head. "If anyone can survive out there with just a couple of arrows and a knife, it's Daryl."

Carol nodded in agreement. "He's okay."

"Then why hasn't he come back yet?"

Lori glanced over at Shane. "He's probably just gone really far out, just to make sure we have a safe place."

Carl pushed away from his mother so he could go stand by the window. He stared out into the night, wondering if Daryl had got bitten by a walker, or if he turned. Those ideas seemed impossible. Ridiculous even. He couldn't imagine anything killing Daryl and he certainly couldn't imagine him as a walker. Daryl was okay.

Thinking about Daryl taking care of himself in the woods made him think of his father. Rick hadn't been fighting the walkers as long as Shane had, but he'd been good at it. How had he let himself get taken down?

He tilted the hat back on his head so he could get closer to the glass. He studied his features in the mirror wondering how much he looked like his dad. How much he would look like him when he grew up.

"Move away from the window," Shane grunted, coming up behind him.

Carl's shoulders slumped and he shifted to sit back down next to his mother.

"What are going to do about food?" Dale asked, poking around in a pack. All he heard was empty cans rattling around. "Do you think we should try to find another place. We'll leave a note for Daryl, telling him where we've gone. I'm sure he'll be able to find us."

"And so will anyone else," Shane replied scathingly. "No. We'll stay here until Daryl gets back. I'm sure Glenn wouldn't mind going off on a run to find us something to eat. It's what he's best at."

Glenn glanced over at Maggie and she shook her head in response.

"Don't look to your girlfriend, boy. I'm the one in charge here, and I tell you where to go and when. Now if I send you off on a run, you go."

"But, we've checked all of the places around here."

Carol moved over to Lori and folded her arms across her waist, more worried about Daryl than she let on. "I know what he's doing," she said as Shane continued to berate Glenn. "He's trying to get rid of all the people who might be able to stand up to him. He knows Daryl is strong but isn't really the type people follow, and he knows that Glenn is smart and he actually has a chance of being a leader. What he doesn't want is to give the rest of us a chance to see that."

Lori wrapped her arms around her burgeoning stomach and watched the argument play out between the two. "Glenn wouldn't do anything that might lead to Maggie being harmed. He should know that."

Carol nodded. "He might know it, but he's got a temper. He doesn't like a real challenge. That's why he got rid of Rick."

Lori gasped and shifted away from Carol. The older woman closed her eyes. She'd just been guessing, but Lori's reaction told her everything she needed to know. That story about Rick falling to a walker had never seemed quite right to her.

"How could you be with him after that?" Carol hissed, glaring from between her lids at Shane.

"How could I not?" Lori asked, fear beading sweat on her upper lip. "He could have killed me. He could have killed Carl!"

The fact the she named herself before her son showed Carol exactly the type of woman Lori was, but she couldn't say she was surprised. She'd seen the type before; always living more in the moment than thinking ahead to the future. Caring more about shows of passion than true stability. Wanting drama, rather than reason and real love.

Carol clamped her jaw shut and moved away from the younger woman. She hadn't known Rick long, but she knew he was a decent man. And what Lori had done to his memory wasn't decent at all.

She jumped and silence fell around the room when a loud tap could be heard at the door. Shane pulled out one of his guns and cocked it.

"Let me have a gun," Glenn hissed.

Shane shushed him and moved to the peep hole in the door. He seemed to blink in surprise before he reached to the door handle and opened the door.

Daryl brushed past him and swept into the room.

"I think I found a place," he announced.

Shane looked to the side in disbelief as he slammed the door behind Daryl. "Yeah?"

"Yeah," Daryl responded mockingly. He narrowed his eyes and turned back to the rest of the group. "I saw a prison. My brother was in jail a few times, so I know those places gotta have food and beds and maybe even medicine."

"You expect us to live in a prison?" Beth drawled.

"Hey, we've made no decisions yet," Shane said, smiling around the room. He clamped a hand on Daryl's shoulder to assert his dominance and pushed the younger man away. "How about we go on a little field trip, check this place out?"

Daryl blinked at Shane suspiciously and Carol's hand shifted nervously to her throat. "Just you and me?"

Shane shook his head. "Of course not. You said this is a good place, so we're heading out."

"The yard is full of walkers though. Prisoners. I figured if they're dead, the food should still be there."

Beth squeezed her father's hand at the thought of being around so many walkers. She didn't know if she could handle it.

"You think we can take 'em?" T-Dog questioned from the side.

"If we go in right," Dary said.

Shane clapped his hands together. "Looks like it's settled then. Good job, Daryl."

Daryl glared and walked away to lean against the edge of a window.

"If it's the prison I'm thinking about, it'll take us about two days to get there," Shane said. "We'll leave in the morning."

He walked over to Lori and wrapped a possessive arm around her waist and kissed her hard on the temple. "I told you everything was going to be alright. All you have to do is stick with me."

**/**

"Do you see that?" Michonne asked, glancing up at the top of some trees where a trail of smoke blackened the sky. "Could that be a camp?"

Rick's face twisted in uncertainty. "I don't know anyone stupid enough to light a fire like that. But then again, it's not just the smart ones who make it this long."

"I think that was a compliment," Michonne said smiling.

His brow wrinkled in confusion then he shook his head. "Want to check it out?"

Michonne nodded and moved up beside him. They kept to a low and careful crouch as they shifted between close-knit trees and low bushes.

"Do you think it could be your people?"

Rick shook his head. "Definitely none of them are this stupid. Anyone could see this."

Michonne agreed and they kept move ahead.

"Are any of them alive?"

Rick froze at the unfamiliar, but alive voice, and held out his hand to stop Michonne. She glanced at where his hand pressed against her stomach and rolled her eyes. Rick clenched his jaw and moved his hand, instead pressing his finger to his lips, telling her to stay quiet.

She narrowed her eyes at him and he grinned cheekily. Now she knew what it was like to be treated like she couldn't take care of herself.

_Want to get closer?_ He asked with a tilt of his head in the direction of the voice.

Michonne nodded and they shifted silently through the woods until they came to a section of bushes that allowed them to peek out on the scene without alerting the others to their presence.

"Alright, check around for-"

"Biter!" A light-skinned man with a half-beard shouted to another man across the clearing from him. They stood around a crashed and blackened helicopter that Michonne could now see was the source of the smoke.

The man who'd been shouted to pulled out a knife and took down the walker behind him. Another showed up, but got an arrow through the eye from another man across the clearing.

Rick scanned their outfits and their weapons. They looked clean, well-groomed, and almost untouched by what, as far as he knew, seemed like the apocalypse. They had a camp somewhere. Since they had a car, he couldn't immediately judge if it was nearby or not, but probably not too far since gas was always an uncertainty.

He looked at Michonne, hoping she could read what he was thinking. Shane might have taken his group to these people and they might be living with them. His son might be with those people out there. Michonne shook her head a little. She could see the hope and longing in Rick's eyes and knew he wanted to reveal himself to those people. She knew he knew the dangers, but she also felt that his heart might outweigh his head.

"Well, well, well."

Michonne's hand went to her sword and Rick's went to his knife, but the cocking of a gun made them both freeze.

"If it isn't Officer Friendly."

Rick shifted his head slightly and a weight of anxiety settled in his chest.

"I've got some questions I'd like to ask you."

He saw the butt of the gun coming toward his face, then the world went black.


	9. Chapter 9

Hi, Yari. I'm so glad you like the story so far and left such a long review. I enjoyed reading it. And you predicted that Andrea was already there. Cool! :D And I'm glad I'm keeping you on your toes, focusedonprosperity. And thanks for commenting consistently Lyra Verse.

**Chapter 9 : Chances**

"You said you know this man?"

Rick shifted his head and cracked his eye open, but the sliver of light caused a blinding pain to shoot to his head, so he closed it again.

"Yeah."

"You, too."

A feminine voice answered this time. "Yeah. He was at the farm I told you about." She sounded confused. "I was told he was dead."

A harsh chuckle and a wheezing, country voice came in. "Whoo, I would love to hear what he has to say."

Another voice, smoother and melodic rose over their chatter. "Well, I think you won't have to wait too long for that. I think he's awake."

Rick, forced his eyes to remain open as he rose to a sitting position to scan the room. He almost wanted to retreat back into unconsciousness when his eyes fell on Merle. The man stared at him like he was an eighty pound buck ready for slaughter. When he caught sight of the blonde woman behind Merle, though, his heart almost burst with joy.

"Andrea," he gasped. He tried to get off of the bed and make his way to her, but he found that he was handcuffed to the bed. A taller man off to the side noticed his discomfort and put up a calming hand.

"Just a precaution."

Rick glanced around the tent-like brown interior of the room he was in. Other beds lined the walls. "Michonne?" He asked, turning.

"Is that that dark girl you were with?" Merle asked in his hoarse and grating voice. "Ditched that little scrawny thing you had for a good 'ol piece of chocolate cake, did ya?"

Rick bore his teeth at Merle. "Where is she?"

Merle chuckled and held up his hands. "Hey, hey now. No need to get your panties in a twist."

Andrea rolled her eyes and stepped toward Rick. "She's behind that curtain over there," she said, pointing to a light-blue drape of cloth. "She's still out from that knock to her head she got when she fell."

"Fell?" Rick asked, looking at Merle.

"Fell," Merle confirmed with a tight-eyed smile.

Rick swallowed hard, hoping that he could believe Andrea and that Michonne was okay, but he had some slightly more important questions for Andrea. With his free hand, he reached out and grabbed hers where she'd rested it on his mattress. She frowned up at him, but waited patiently seeing the distress in his eyes.

"Is Carl here? Is he okay?"

Andrea's eyes fell to the ground and she scuffed her toe in the dirt. She'd really hoped he wouldn't start with that question. "He's not here," she said softly, watching the light dim in his eye. She pinched her lips together and laid her other hand on top of his. "And I don't know if he's okay."

"What happened?" he asked. "What happened back there?"

"I kind of want to ask you the same thing," she said, her eyes searching. "Why did Shane tell us that a walker got you? He said you were dead, that he put you down himself."

Merle chuckled in the background.

Rick ignored him and blinked his eyes until the sting went away. He'd been so sure that the rest of his group had to be here since Andrea was. "He tried to. He left me for dead."

The disbelief in Andrea's eyes caused him to shake his head. "It doesn't matter." He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose.

"I'm glad you're okay. That you survived."

Andrea nodded and moved away from him. "I'm glad I am too. I barely did. I wouldn't have if it hadn't been for the people here."

Rick glanced around at the two nurses moving through the tent and wondered how many more people this camp might contain.

"Merle found me a few days ago and brought me back here. Got me cleaned up."

Merle chuckled. "That's me. The good Samaritan." He moved closer. "Unlike somebody who left me handcuffed on a roof."

"We went back for you," Rick said insistently, tilting his head toward Merle. "All that was left when we got there was your hand. We looked for you."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. Daryl didn't want to leave until we found you, but the walkers drove us out."

"I just bet they did," Merle said, his small eyes narrowing further. "And have you seen my brother?"

Rick glanced down at the covers, genuinely sorry. Daryl actually had seemed like a descent guy, unlike his older brother. "Naw. I haven't seen him."

Merle pursed his lips, but left the questions alone. He'd have time to get all the information he needed.

"Can I see Michonne now?"

Andrea looked to the taller man in the corner who gave his permission before she leaned over, uncuffed Rick and moved him toward the blue curtain. She pushed it back to reveal a still sleeping Michonne who had a large, purple bruise developing on her forehead.

Rick touched it lightly, then flinched back when she winced in her unconsciouses state. He glared back at Merle and asked accusingly, "Did you have to hit her so hard?"

"How would I know how much strength is needed to take down Jackie Brown?" He chuckled but no one else in the room did. He turned with a shake of his head and strolled out the door. "Does no one know how to take a joke?"

Rick ignored Merle's jibes and let his eyes study the man who'd been standing in the corner. He seemed to be the one running things. "Who's that?" Rick asked softly, hoping no one else would overhear his curiosity. Sometimes it could be a bad thing in the wrong situations.

"That," Andrea said with a kind of light in her eye that let Rick know the relationship wasn't as simple as it had at first seemed. "Is the Governor."

Rick squinted at the man and found that he was being sized up in return. _What kind of man calls himself 'the Governor'?_ He wondered.

The man made his way over to Rick and Andrea. He gave Andrea a look and she walked away from the pair.

"So," the man said, propping a hand on one of his hips and looking Rick up and down. "Andrea tells me that you're a good guy who's just lost his family and Merle tells me that you chained him to a roof."

"Yeah?" Rick prompted.

"Why'd you chain him to a roof?"

Rick shrugged a shoulder. "He was attacking a man. Nearly killed him."

"For what?" the Governor asked, his facial expression hard to read.

"His skin color," Rick answered simply.

The Governor nodded and seemed to have come to a decision.

"You lost your family?"

"My wife, my kid. But I'd just like to think I haven't found them yet."

The Governor smiled slightly, but Rick couldn't judge what the emotion behind it was.

"But you think you will and the group you were with?"

"I'd really like to hope so," he said, resting his hand on Michonne's bed. "If Andrea got out, then they probably did too."

"They probably did at that," the Governor said in a contemplative tone. "And they're probably real resourceful."

Rick nodded, becoming a little uncomfortable. The Governor seemed to sense this and stepped back a bit.

"Alright. How about I leave you with your friend here. When you two are feeling up to it, we can take a walk around town and you can get to know some people here."

Rick narrowed his eyes suspiciously at the man and moved closer to Michonne. "Alright. That sounds…good."

The Governor grinned and left the tent, but not before Rick noticed he whispered to two men standing just outside the tent flap. While the Governor pretended to be friendly, he and Michonne were nothing more than prisoners.

**/**

Michonne groaned and slowly opened her eyes, a shooting pain over her left eyebrow kept her from making too many sudden movements with her head.

"Hey."

She twitched when a hand landed on her shoulder, but then the fuzzy, but familiar face of Rick Grimes leaned into her view.

"What happened?" she asked groggily.

She heard the scrape of a chair as Rick shifted closer to her bed, and he lowered his voice. "We're at a camp. I don't know where, but there are at least five other people here. I don't know how many more. The leader here said something about showing us around the 'town', so…"

Michonne forced herself to a sitting position despite the blinding pain in her head and took note of her surroundings. The brownish-green tent had a fresh smell to it and all of the sheets on the medical beds were clean. It seemed like so far Rick's assessment was right, and she was also feeling his trepidation. It was hard to trust people when it came to the end of the world.

"Where's my sword?" She asked, missing the weight of it slung across her shoulders.

Rick's eyes drifted around the room. "I searched the entire place while you were out. All of our weapons are gone."

By the way her lips pinched together, Rick knew she didn't like that. He didn't like it much either. And without knowing how many other people waited outside the tent, they couldn't make some kind of escape attempt. They didn't even know what kind of place they were being held in. He hated not knowing.

"When we get to have a look at this town, we have to take a _real_ good look," he stressed.

Michonne nodded. There was no such thing as being too careful.

**/**

Shane sneered at the landscape of wasted walkers they now had outside their fortress. Sure, some of the group were upset that people had died or gotten injured, but what did they expect. You had to sacrifice the pawns in order to capture the king.

"Shit, girl, stop crying about your sister. No one could have known that walker would be there."

Maggie glared daggers at Shane, but he really hadn't been able to control the situation. Beth had simply been standing in the wrong place at the wrong time, and walkers were everywhere. Often where you least expected them to be. The one that had gotten Beth had been folded under a cot. Maggie curled into Glenn's side and stared blankly at the gun in her hand, now empty of ammo. She wished she had at least one more bullet. There was one man she really wished would get caught in her crosshairs. She normally wouldn't have thought about killing another human being, but some people just didn't really seem that human when compared to others.

Hershal laid his hand on his daughter's shoulder, feeling the loss of his youngest like a yoke on his shoulders. But there was no getting her back. They'd also lost Jimmy. He'd tried to fight through the crowd of walkers and reach Beth, but he'd only gotten taken down too.

Lori looked around the cell, feeling something close to normal for the first time in a long time.

"Now that we have a place to stay, what are we going to do about food?"

Shane wrapped an arm around her in victory and gave her a little kiss. When she froze in his arms, he stepped away. His brows pinched together in the center. "I'm sure this place has some sort of cafeteria."

Dale nodded in agreement.

"Well, who plans on helping me find it?"

No one really felt the urge to volunteer after they'd fought their way through so many walkers just hours previously, but they were hungry to the point of starving. Even finding a bag of flour would be a boon.

Shane sniffed and glared around at the group. They looked bloodied, haggard, and absolutely weak. "Fine," he muttered. "Fine. I'll go by myself. Make this place look presentable while I'm gone."

**/**

"What are doing?" Carol asked Lori after Shane had been gone for nearly an hour.

Lori looked around from where she had been shaking out clean sheets, getting them ready to be put on the beds.

"He says jump and you're going to say 'how high'?"

Lori pinched her thin lips and avoided Carol's eyes. "I know he hasn't don anything right, but… I need someone to take care of me. I'm not like you. "

"What do you mean?"

Lori laid her hand on her stomach and turned to face the older woman, tears in her eyes as they were so often these days. "It's almost time for the baby to come, and I haven't felt it move. I'm scared. I'm scared of the baby being alive, and I'm scared of the baby being dead. I'm scared of raising the baby in this world, and I'm scared of the baby having to survive in this world without me because I just don't know. I don't know if-" She pressed her fist to her mouth to stifle the sobs, hoping that Carl wouldn't overhear. But he was over near Hershal talking about God knows what. "I don't know if I'm going to survive this pregnancy. They had to _cut _Carl out of me."

Carol rested a hand on Lori's bony shoulder. "We have Hershal, and he's been teaching me a few things."

Lori nodded. "I know, I know. But no matter what, I'm going to need more help than you will. I'm got two children to take care of, one of them that can't even walk, hasn't even taken her first breath. Shane can help her survive in this world."

Carol looked at her with a mix of disgust and pity. "So could Rick."

Lori's shoulders slumped forward and her skin seemed to suddenly sag. She looked so much older with those few words. "I've never missed someone so much as I miss him right now. How could I not see what type of man Shane really was?"

Carol shrugged and shook her head. "We never do until it's too late."

**/**

"Why don't we just kill him?" T-Dog snarled.

Glenn ran a hand through his dark hair and held his other arm tighter around Maggie. "We don't just kill people."

"Oh-ho, if it's him, I'm willing."

Daryl's lowered head mostly hid his expression, but the way his jaw muscles worked, it was easy to see he was chewing over a difficult decision. "If we take him out, who would lead?"

"My dad could," Maggie piped up. Her red nose made the rest of her face look ashen. "He don't let things faze him. Even if it takes him a while to see what the right thing to do is, he'll always do what needs to be done."

Glenn nodded in agreement, so did Daryl. "But," Glenn said, "I don't think it's right that we're talking about _killing_ someone." He gestured around. "Can't we just lock him up in one of these cells?"

"I don't want to be trying to sleep with him shouting crazy at us. And what if someone helps him break out? We'll all be dead."

"Who would help him break out?" Glenn asked in confusion.

"Oh, I don't know," T-Dog retorted sarcastically, "Maybe his pregnant girlfriend over there, or Carl. Hell, maybe even Hershal if he feels like the man 'learned his lesson' or something."

"I'd prefer to be shot, thanks."

Everyone shifted at the intrusion and then shuffled back when they realized it came from Shane.

"If ya'll gone try to plan my murder," he stressed with a smile, "then you should do it somewhere private."

Daryl glared and trundled away while T-Dog watched the burgeoning mad man from beneath his brows.

"Look what I found," Shane said with a laugh, pulling on a rope. A man with rope binding his hands together, and then to his torso, stumbled out of the dark tunnel. He was twitching and crying and covered in blood, but also wore a blindfold. He was also wearing a prison uniform.

Shane grabbed the top of the man's head and shook it from side to side. "This little guy here is my friend, Axel. Why don't you tell my people what you know?"

If anything, Axel started blubbering harder. "The-there's food in the cafeteria. Lot's of food. We were holed up in there for a long time."

Shane looked a warning around the rest of the group. "And why is it that I'm only introducing _you_ to all of my friends here?" He asked with mock concern. "What happened to all of your friends."

Axel's trembling escalated until it was only Shane's grip on the rope that was keeping him upright. "He killed 'em," he finally said, a whimper in his voice. "He killed 'em all."


	10. Chapter 10

~ Sorry it took so long for me to post up this chapter, but I've been working on quite a few papers so haven't been able to update. I didn't get to much of the intense stuff this chapter either, but those papers really took a lot out of me. Hey Yari, I plan to have a little more Andrea and Michonne interaction in the next chapter :D. Hi, Kam. I'm glad your anticipating some overlay between Shane/Lori and Rick/Michonne - I'm not going to give too much away though. ;-D As always, thanks everyone for commenting. It really makes my day to see how you guys feel about each chapter. PS. I apologize in advance for bad grammar and typos - too tired to read it over right now.

**Chapter 10 : Words**

Michonne and Rick were being given a tour of the town by Andrea. They hadn't seen Merle since he'd brought them to the town, Woodbury. Rick worried about what that meant, but he tried not to let it color his impression of the town. He needed to see these people for what they were, good or bad, if he wanted to know what kind of place it really was. So far, they had seen nothing out of the ordinary besides the large wall that surrounded the town, but that was normal in this new world where the dead walked. What wasn't normal were the happy people roaming the streets and going on like the world had never ended.

"The Governor makes sure everyone is fed and everyone has a job. There a few people on the run crew who get sent out almost every day to scout."

"Have you ever been out with them?" Rick asked, squinting at a man with a gun, standing on the thick wall and facing away from the town.

Andrea smiled a little and grimaced. "I don't think he trusts me to do anything important yet."

"Come on, you were pretty good with a gun."

Michonne looked Andrea over again and reassessed her.

"I'm even better now," Andrea bragged slightly, a grin lightening the pinched look of her face.

Rick gave her a skeptical look which caused Andrea to laugh. Michonne rolled her eyes and shook her head. Seemed like at the end of the world, all men thought about were women. _But then again_, she thought with a scowl as a dark man with a full afro scanned her up and down, _besides the dead walking and trying to survive, what else was there to think about?"_

"And this is where you'll be staying," Andrea was saying as they stopped in front of a two story house. "Michonne will have a-"

Rick glanced at Michonne. "We stay together."

Andrea shook her head. "The Governor thought it best that-"

Rick chewed on the inside of his jaw for a bit, then threw an arm around Michonne's waist, causing her eyes to pop in surprise. Rick almost pulled away when he felt her considerable muscles stiffen, but there was no way he was going to be separated from the only person he trusted, or allow her to be taken off to who knows where. "No, I mean, we're _together,"_ he stressed, looking embarrassed.

Michonne had to stifle a laugh at the bright flush that stained his cheeks. It was fun to watch him squirm.

Andrea glanced between them in shock, her brows low in confusion. "But, Lori…"

Rick hid his pain as best he could. "I haven't seen her in a _long _time, and I don't.. I don't even know if she's still alive." He hung his head a little. "I've got to keep going somehow."

Andrea sucked in a breath and stared off into the distance for a while, her light blue eyes considering. She finally turned back to Rick and nodded. "I don't see why the Governor would have a problem with it. I'll get someone to send you over some clothes you can change into. We kind of had to burn everything that was in your packs. It wasn't in any state to reuse."

"What about our weapons?" he asked earnestly.

Andrea fingered the little blade at her own waist. "I'm not going to lie to you. I don't know if you're going to get them back, at least not for a while," she hurried to add, seeing the anger and panic in their eyes. "You _can_ carry knives if you want. I'll bring you some sheaths and a blade with the clothes. There should be some food inside and there's running water for part of the day. They can only turn the generators own every once in a while. I guess it's good that you two will be sharing a place since it'll save energy."

"What time do they come on?" Michonne asked curiously.

"Around eight or so and only for about an hour, so you have to do what you need to do pretty quick."

When Andrea was sure they had been set up and knew about the men stationed at the wall in case they got curious and wanted to scout near there, she left them to attend to some business of her own.

Rick shifted his arm from around Michonne and looked around at the busy neighborhood and the children playing kickball in the sandy streets. "Do you think we can trust this place?"

Michonne put her hands on her hips and glared around too, angry because of how nervous she felt without her sword at her back. "Everyone's too cheerful, there's got to be something off. I hate to think like that, but these kind of people don't get to live like this unless something much darker is going on somewhere else."

Rick blinked at the side of her head, his mouth tilting up at the corner. "You been reading comic books again? That sounded dramatic."

The line disappeared from between Michonne's brows and she couldn't help but grin. "Do you want to scout the town some more or go in there and finally get a decent night's rest on a decent bed?" she asked, tilting her head toward the house Andrea had left them in front of.

"I don't think I'm going to be able to get a good night's sleep for a while, not in a town where Merle is roaming around."

"Ah."

"But I think my feet would thank me if I at least propped them up on something. And I'm so hungry I almost started to think like a walker."

Michonne chuckled and turned toward the house, walking up the white steps and swinging open the heavy oak door. "Well, come on then. Home sweet home."

**/**

Everyone stayed quiet while they ate the heated food they'd found in the prison cafeteria. The only sounds permeating the room was that of their spoons clinking against trays and Axel whimpering in the corner. While everyone was hungry, they found that they could not finish everything on their plates - the thought of what had transpired in order to get the food turned their appetites. They understood killing when it had to be done, but what Shane had done? Killing people just to make sure the rest of his own group stayed in line was taking it a step too far. Shane was on a dark path and they didn't know what might set him off again, or if he even needed to be set off before he did something drastic.

Hershal cleared his throat and leaned back, putting his tray to the side to finish it later, should his appetite return. "I feel like we should start making plans for what we're going to do next?"

Shane got a dangerous look in his eye, he didn't like it when someone else tried to make decisions for the group. "What do you mean? We're safe now. We have food."

Hershal held up his hands. "I know all that. But all that canned food, while it's a lot and there aren't many of us, it won't last forever."

Everyone begin to look at each other in consideration. Many hadn't thought far past what would happen tomorrow. They were too used to staying on the move, watching out for walkers. They'd forgotten what it was like to plan for a possible future.

"What are you suggesting?" Maggie asked, reaching out to take her father's hand.

He smiled at the small show of support. "The land out there looked pretty good. Maybe we could farm it. And if we look hard enough, maybe we could even find some pigs or chickens."

Everyone fairly drooled at the thought of fresh bacon and real eggs. Fats running down their lips and dripping past their chins.

"So all it would take is a run to get a few gardening supplies?" Shane asked.

"Yeah," Hershal nodded, his face now practically glowing. "We could get some seed, this place probably already has some shovels and such not."

Lori reached over and lightly laid her hand on top of Shane's, making her eyes as sweet and hopeful as she could. "This place could really be a home."

Shane blinked at her and his hand trembled slightly beneath hers. It had been so long since she'd made a move to touch him first. And the way she was looking at him? _Home…_ A corner of his mouth went up in a nervous smile and he turned to Hershal and gave him a nod.

The old man whooped and clapped his daughter on the shoulder, earning smiles and laughs from the rest of the group. He was like their grandfather, so seeing him happy made them all a little happier.

"Volunteers for the first run?" Glenn asked, holding up his hand.

Daryl chuffed him on the arm. "I ain't gonna let you go alone."

"What about me?" Carl piped up. "Can I come?"

Lori's face went pale and she almost reached out to him to grab him and tell him 'no', but Shane beat her to an answer.

"Sure, why not?" He said pleasantly. "I'm sure Daryl and Glenn can keep an eye on you." The mad threat was back in his eye when he glanced over at Carl's protectors. "I'm sure they'd die before they let anything happen to him."

Glenn swallowed, but Daryl nodded without hesitation. "I'll look out for him like he's my own."

The room stilled as if everyone were afraid that the small truce that had broken over them was gone, but when Shane only smiled slightly, they relaxed, but only a little.

**/**

"Do you want the twin-sized bed, or the king-sized bed?" Rick asked, looking into the master bedroom where a large masted bed crouched against the far wall and beneath a south-facing window. They'd already explored the large house, and the only other bed available had been a small one tucked into what appeared used to be a kid's room. The living room had a sofa, but with beds available, there was no way they were going to choose to sleep on that.

"Doesn't matter to me," Michonne said, strolling into the room and jumping onto the bed, folding her arms behind her head and crossing her feet. "But looks like this one chose me."

Rick blinked in surprised, then chuckled, cursing himself for thinking Michonne would play fair. "Fine. But if I'm all cramped up in the morning, it's your fault."

Michonne kicked off her shoes and let out a yawn. "Don't care."

"You're not even going to bathe first?"

"What? So you can take the bed while I wash my face?"

His brows scrunched together. "Hey, you might think like that, but I don't. I'm far too much of a gentleman."

"Pff." She waved her hand at him until he stepped backward, behind the threshold. "I'm tired."

"You're not even gonna wish me goodnight?"

"If I'd known you were this needy, I would have left you to the walkers."

He put his arms around himself and pretended to shiver. "If I'd known you were this cold, I wouldn't have _let_ you save me."

She took off one of her fingerless gloves and threw it at him, so he held up his palms in surrender.

"Fine, goodnight."

Michonne chuckled. "'Night."

**/**

Michonne strolled into the kitchen a few days later. She and Rick had been in Woodbury for a week. She'd finally completely recovered from her head wound and Rick seemed to have his health back as well. He at least seemed to be putting on a little bit of weight. His face no longer looked as gaunt. Every morning that she came downstairs, she usually found that he'd beaten her there and was already started on one food item or another. This morning he wasn't at the table, but instead stood at the kitchen counter, his hands pressed to the surface and his eyes narrowed tight against the sunlight streaming in from the large window facing the street in front of the house.

Michonne started a pot of coffee, then walked over to stand beside him. She tilted her head to see what he was looking at and frowned when she noted it was two boys playing kickball in the street.

She turned her back to the counter and leaned against it so she could study his face.

"You thinking about your boy?"

He sucked in a little painful breath. "I'm never _not_ thinking about him." He shook his head and pulled his eyes from the window. "I can't think that he's dead, but it's all I can see. In my dreams, he's one of them, one of those dead men walking. In my nightmares, he's been torn apart and eaten by a horde of those things. At least if I found him as a walker, I'd know, but if he's gone… if he's in pieces-"

Michonne, seeing that he was tearing himself up inside over those thoughts, dropped a hand on his shoulder and gave the tense muscle a quick squeeze. "Or he's alive," she said insistently. "All we have to do is get out there and start looking again."

He massaged a hand over his forehead, then left it over his eyes. "They haven't given us back our weapons, and the only people I see leave this place are people that man, the _Governor, _keeps close. Not even Andrea gets to leave and she's sleeping with him."

Michonne nodded. They'd asked to be given their weapons and a few supplies two days ago since they were both feeling strong enough, but the Governor had come up with one reason after another why they couldn't go 'just yet'. No. They weren't allowed to leave. And if they weren't allowed to leave, then it meant they had to stay or die. She refused to do either.

"We'll just have to find another way to get our stuff and get up out of here."

She reached up her other hand and pulled his down from his eyes. "We're going to find him," she said with asurity, looking him right in the eye. "And I promise you, he's going to be okay."

Rick squeezed her hand and gave her a nod, knowing that it might be an impossible promise for her to keep, but felt grateful for her making it all the same. "Thank you," he said gravelly, pushing away from the kitchen counter and heading toward the kettle of coffee now squealing and sending it's scent through the room.

"You're welcome," she said saucily, strutting across the room, causing him to finally show a smile this morning. "I always got to pull your sorry butt out of one thing or another. This time it was your own funk."


	11. Chapter 11

~ I apologize for how long it took me to update. I needed to clear my brain and do a few class assignments. I also apologize for this stunted length... :D ~

**Chapter 11 : Sentimental**

Rick paced back and forth in front of the wall. He and Michonne had heard gunshots in the night and when they'd gotten up to see what was going on, a van had been being driven through town with an armed guard.

He sighed with relief when Michonne finally showed up, strutting around a the corner of a warehouse style building and glancing over her shoulder as if she were afraid she were being followed.

"What's going on?"

Michonne blew out an aggravated breath and brushed her heavy dreads over one shoulder so they would hang down her back. "Andrea doesn't know either and none of the men who usually watch the wall are talking."

Rick ran a hand through his thick, curly hair and kicked at some grass struggling its way out of the dusty soil. "Just what the hell is going on. They won't let us leave and they sure as hell don't treat us like we belong here."

Michonne caught his eye, then glanced around at the tall walls filled with guards keeping them penned in. "We got to find some way to get out."

"This whole fence can't be secure," he muttered, studying the wall just like Michonne. "There's no way."

"I don't know," Michonne responded with a shrug. "He's got enough people and enough ammo."

Rick clicked his tongue in the back of his throat. "Do you think Andrea would help?"

Michonne scoffed. "Me and her look like bosom buddies to you?"

Rick shook his head, then chuckled. "Now ain't that an image."

Michonne at first appeared confused, then she rolled her eyes. "Men are the same on either side of the apocalypse."

"Well, something has got to stay the same, don't it?" He asked with a wink.

Michonne punched him lightly in the shoulder, then turned serious again. "Maybe he'll just let us go. Let us walk out of here."

"If he were going to do that, he would have done it sooner."

"Plottin'?"

Michonne and Rick jumped at the intrusive and rough voice. Merle smiled at his ability to sneak up on the two unawares. A lot had come from his hunting days with his father as a youth. Nothing really pleasant about those memories except he learned how to get away from the house and his father every once in a while and even have fun doing it once he learned how to track right. He'd once managed to trail a deer back to a whole little patch of 'em. Daryl had been impressed when he'd shown him that. Not so much so when Merle had taken one down.

"What's so bad up in here that you two want to get out so bad? Or are you just scared your neighbors are going to hear you bumping and grinding in the night. I know ya'll little chocolate girls can't keep it down."

Michonne's jaw clenched so hard, Rick was scared she'd broken something, but she refused to show any anger past that. Merle wasn't worth it and it wasn't like it would stop him from spouting something else.

"Why don't the governor let us leave?" Rick asked instead, a hard undertone to his voice.

Merle grinned. "We wouldn't even let a dog outta here. And you act like you don't know why?" He shook his head. "Lassie don't keep no secrets once she's out. She wander out all fat and fluffy and who's going to think she's just been making it so well on her own? Oh no. Nobody. They're gonna follow fat little Lassie right back to her feeding dish."

"We won't tell nobody where we was. We can promise you that."

"Promises don't mean nothin' when somebody's got a knife under your nails and is prying out all your little secretes, now do they?"

Rick looked away. He had no answer for that. He couldn't promise he wouldn't break under duress because he didn't know. He didn't know how much it would take before he was telling somebody everything they wanted to know. Especially when he had something to live for.

"Can we at least have our weapons back? Help watch the walls? Something? We're going stir crazy just eating food all day and sitting around. Feel like I'm being fattened up for them walkers out there."

Merle chuckled. "You just might be at that," he said with a smile, enjoying the frustration and worry on Rick's face. "Ya'll keep having your little powwow. I'll go see what the governor thinks about _you_ guarding our walls. We might even have a few laughs over it."

Michonne glared at the woodsman's thick back as he disappeared around the wall of the warehouse. "I don't like this. We've got to get out of here."

"We don't have any weapons, any plan, any idea of where we _are. _I've never even heard of the town of Woodberry before."

Michonne shrugged. "Neither have I, but we're on a road from somewhere that's going somewhere else. As long as we can find some kind of map or some distance away from this place, then we'll be alright." Seeing that Rick was still worrying about what they would do and even how they would get over the walls, she stepped closer to him. "Don't you want to find your son."

His brow lowered. "Of course I do!" he hissed fiercely.

"And I know you think that being part of this town or even convincing some of these men to help you look will guarantee you find him, but I don't trust them. I don't trust what they want and I don't trust what they do."

"Maybe they're just cautious."

Michonne blew out a breath between her thick lips. "Are you trying to talk me out of wanting to leave because you've gotten used to having breakfast every morning?" She smacked the back of her hand against his stomach. "You're starting to put on a few more pounds than you think."

Rick grimaced and pushed her hand away, knowing she was trying to lighten the situation to get him on her side. But he was scared. Scared of what might be on the other side of that wall, scared of what the Governor would do when he found out they'd gone, scared they'd even make it that far, and even more terrified of restarting the search for his son. He was almost certain by now, after months on the road, that there was no way that Carl was still alive. Finding Andrea had been as close as he'd gotten, but once she told him she had no idea what happened to the rest of the group, it had been a major blow.

Michonne studied Rick's facial expression and moved even closer to him, this time just resting her fingertips lightly on his forearm. She felt the slight tremors of uncertainty running through the muscles so close to the surface.

"Rick…"

He shook his head and lowered his eyes.

"I know it's almost impossible to believe that your son is still out there, but something has got to keep us going."

"Yeah?" he asked. "Well, what keeps _you_ going? You won't tell me anything about yourself and I'm just supposed to follow you out of here on faith."

A deep furrow formed between Michonne's dark brows. "Hey. I've stuck beside you when a lot of people would have left your for dead."

Rick felt ashamed of his outburst against Michonne. She'd been nothing but his friend since the first time she saw him and here he was snapping at her when all she wanted was him to have a little hope again. He laid his hand on top of hers where it rested against his forearm. "I'm sorry. And I don't stick with you just because you saved my life. You've been a friend. A good friend. I'm sorry."

Michonne nodded, but she still looked a little angry to Rick with her full lips pursed.

"I don't need to know more about you then that."

He cleared his throat and moved his hand from hers. "So, what's the plan? We need your sword and at least some sort of weapon for me. He's obviously going to send some people after us judging by the way he doesn't want people to leave this place."

Michonne shoved her hands into her back pockets and glanced up at the wall beyond the fence. "I'm thinking we should wait at least two days to a week. Act the same way we always have: eating, sleeping, and begging or something to do and our weapons back. You seduce Andrea and get her to-"

Rick held up his hand. "Wait, what?"

Michonne smirked. "You should use those baby blue's for something other than trying to get _me _to smile and tell you my life story."

He chuckled and rubbed a hand against the back of his neck.

"She seems a little loose, so I think a smile and a wink from you and she'll be bed hopping faster than a bed bug."

Rick laughed out loud at her attempt to use some of his country slang. "Wow."

"You're not bad looking, Rick Grimes. I'm sure you can convince her to show us out of here, or at least get some weapons out of the deal."

"I'm not some gigolo," he grunted. "Why don't you try softening some of your hard edges and connecting with her woman to woman?"

Michonne titled up her chin with a grin and Rick wondered what he could have said to make her smile like that.

"What?" he asked.

"You'd be surprised at how soft I am, Rick Grimes."

Rick's eyes shot open wide and he found himself blushing. _Is she flirting with me?_ "Ummmm, what?"

Michonne just shook her head and laughed. "I saved your butt and nursed you back to health when I didn't have to, didn't I?"

"Heh, heh-heh," Rick chuckled nervously, unable to unsee that glint in Michonne's eye and wondering in what places she could be soft. She'd managed to mess up his mind with just a few words. Man, the woman was good at distracting him. "Yeah, yeah, you did." He rubbed his eyes to try to clean up the gutter Michonne had inadvertently taken his mind to.

She smacked him on the shoulder. "Come on. Let's go finish making plans. We've got a lot to do if you're ever going to see your son again."

Rick sighed and nodded, allowing Michonne to lead him by the nose. He was glad there was someone around to keep him from giving up while managing to make the dark time seem not so dark after all.


	12. Chapter 12

~ Thanks as always for reading and reviewing. I love reading the comments.

**Chapter 12 : The Plan**

"How long do you think she has?" Glenn asked in a worried voice as he leaned toward Maggie. His attention was on the very pregnant, possibly overdue Lori lying on the bed of a cell in a distant corner.

"I don't know," Maggie responded in her soft, accented voice. "But whenever it is, we have to be ready for it.

"Guys, someone…" Axel moaned from his own cell, his face pressed against the bars, a frightened look in his eyes that never seemed to go away. He seemed to be anticipating some sort of punishment even when he slept fitfully. They could all hear him whimpering at night. "I promise, I won't try to escape or hurt anyone, just let me out. It's been so long, just let me out."

Maggie felt her heart go out to the man, but she didn't want to cross Shane. She also didn't completely trust the words of the little, blonde man. He seemed harmless, but after what Shane had put him through and the fact that he was a prisoner, she didn't want to take any chances.

"Whenever she pops, we have to be ready."

"What are you thinking?" Glenn asked, scratching at the bit of mustache that had managed to form on his upper lip.

"The baby's going to need food, clothing. Diapers." She ran a hand through her hair at the thought of dirty diapers.

"You thinking we need to go on a run?"

She smiled a little, her green eyes tilting into half-moons. Glenn felt a smile form on his own face. He thanked God or someone up above, heck, even the zombies for the luck of getting someone like her.

"I'm thinking _I _need to go on a run. One more day cooped up in here and I'm going to turn as crazy as Shane."

Glenn laughed, but glanced around to make sure the man in question hadn't heard. There was no telling what he would do, but he seemed to have calmed down now that they'd settled somewhere and had food. And also since Shane seemed to be back in Lori's good graces.

"I just don't get her," Maggie said, following Glenn's eyes.

"Yeah, well," Glenn looked away. "I hate feeling like I have to ask him for permission to go out on a run, but we have to have some sort of order here."

"Guys…"

"Yeah," Maggie agreed with a sigh. She rested a hand on his arm and let it run down to intertwine with his. "I-"

"Guy-"

Maggie pinched her lips together and whirled around on Axel, but seeing the frightened look in his eyes, she slowly let her anger out through her nose. "Listen," she said, her accent heavier in her anger. "I ain't got nothing against you, but we can't let you out, no matter how much you ask. One, we don't know you. Two, I ain't risking a bullet from crazy Shane for a stranger."

Axel shifted his feet nervously, but continued to peep out pleadingly through the bars. "At least give me something to do. I can weave a basket, or wash some clothes. I'm mighty good at playing a harmonica if you give me a chance. But I'm going to go crazy if I got to stay in here with nothing but my thoughts to keep me company day in and day out. Please, have some mercy on a fella."

Seeing that Maggie was about to blow up again, Glenn tapped her on the shoulder, shook his head, then spoke to Axel. "We'll see what we can do. Maybe we'll find a sewing kit while we're out there and you can learn how to make us a whole new wardrobe."

Axel's grin nearly split his face in two and Glenn couldn't help but think he might like the guy if given a chance to get to know him. "Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. I-"

Glenn turned away from him, not able to stand too much more praise. "Let's see about going on that run," he said to Maggie. "I think I've about reached my limit of being in here, too."

* * *

"You have your bag packed?" Michonne asked Rick when she stepped into the room he was using. She hovered at the door, her arms crossed over her chest.

"Yeah," he returned. "But I"m not sure this plan is even going to work. Andrea is a wild card."

Michonne nodded. She completely agreed. They'd spent the last four days getting on Andrea's good side, trying to learn more about her and her relationship with The Governor. She was pretty forth-coming about her role in Woodbury and how she'd managed to gain a modicum of trust, but speaking with her also revealed she was just as trapped as they were. If not more so. Because she was with the Governor so much, she was much more of a liability than they were should she end up in enemy hands, so she was never allowed to leave.

"Yeah, but she understands that we want to be able to go our own way. She knows you want to find your son."

Rick blew out a breath. Talking about Carl was painful. Even thinking about him and possibly never finding him nearly left him unable to get out of bed in the mornings. Michonne walked over to him where he stood near his window and put a hand on his back.

"You okay?"

He shook his head. "No."

Michonne studied the back of his head, the dark hair curling down his tanned neck and the slow, steady breaths that lifted his sloped shoulders. "Andrea said they will be out most of the day. They're scouting some new areas for supplies."

Rick turned toward her, but she never moved her hand, so it ended up resting in the center of his chest. "But Andrea's still going to be here. If she walks in on us taking out weapons, she might call up some of the guards."

"Oh, come on. I can take Andrea."

Rick took note of her heavily muscled arms and the steady look in her eye. "I know you can. But if we don't have to kill anyone on the way out, that would be nice."

"We can just hit her over the head and tie her up. No need to be so violent, Rick."

He scoffed at her flipping the blame to him. He suddenly smiled a little and laid his hand over hers, pressing it more firmly against his chest. Michonne's brow raised in confusion when he took her hand and grazed his lips against the back of her knuckles before dropping her hand. "I always forget you're a woman until you mess with my mind like that."

Michonne chuckled, but glared at him, not sure if she should be offended by his comment. "You got the path we're going to take out of town memorized yet?" she asked, folding her arms again and changing the subject.

"Of course," he said, sitting down on his bed and pulling on his boots. "You take care of that guy who's been watching us?"

Michonne smirked. "I put a kitchen knife right between his eyes."

Rick's head jerked up until he saw the joking gleam in her eye.

"He's tied up securely in a closet in one of the empty houses over on Blackburn St. We're good."

Rick sighed with relief. "Alright, then. I guess there's only one thing left to do."

"Get the weapons?"

Rick stood up and slung his backpack on his back. "Get the weapons."

* * *

"I wish you would stop talking to me about those two," the Governor said, tucking his shirt into his pants and he turned to face the blond woman wrapped only in a sheet on his bed. "I'm not going to let them help guard this city. Not now. And maybe not ever. I don't like the looks of that woman who came in here with a sword."

Andrea tucked an unruly strand of golden hair behind her ear and pursed her lips. "They've done nothing but try to survive out there, now they want a little freedom in here, a return to normalcy."

"They been asking you to speak to me for them?" the Governor asked suspiciously, curious about why she was so intent on helping the two strangers.

"No, but I know Rick. He's a good guy. He doesn't deserve to be treated like this. If you put a gun in his hands, he will help protect what's yours, like he did for us," she entreated.

The Governor sighed and sat down on the bed beside her, running a hand over her tousled hair, liking the little spark of fire he saw in her blue eyes. "You got feelings for him?"

Andrea scoffed in surprise, causing the Governor to chuckle.

"Stop bringing this up to me," he said a little more softly than the other times they'd had this discussion. "I know what I'm doing. I think he might have changed a lot more than you think out there with nothing but that fighting woman to keep him company. I need more time to get to know him." He leaned forward and kissed her on the forehead. "I'll be back in a few hours."

Andrea signed and glared up at him. "Be safe out there."

He winked. "Always am."

* * *

"Hm."

Michonne rolled her eyes. "What?"

"I'm just wondering when you're going to make your move," Rick said, squinting up at the sun.

She waved her hand at the three guards pacing back and forth in front of the weapons storage unit and scowled in annoyance. "Am I the only one who sees those guys?"

Rick shook his head. "Nope. But we could try the back like I've been suggesting for the past two hours."

She blew hot breath out of her nose. "It's all locked up in the back, I've told you that."

"I'm sure we could find a way in."

"Just have some patience!"

"I thought you said Andrea figured nearly everyone would be going out to search for a new supply location."

Michonne rounded on Rick and he sat back a bit in his crouched position. She pointed at him, sticking her finger right under his nose. "Can you be quiet? I'm trying to think."

He held up his hands in surrender and relaxed forward again, resting an elbow on his knee.

Michonne turned back around and watched as the guards idly chatted with one another while keeping one eye on the door to the weapons storage and an occasional eye on the street in front of them. She looked at the buildings next to the one they wanted to get into and got an idea. She turned to Rick and elbowed his knee lightly, catching his attention. She pointed to the row of roofs leading up to the weapon's storage and the windows lining the third floor of that building. Rick compressed his lips, assessing the situation, then nodded.

"Lead on, Captain."

* * *

"I'm surprised he let us go," Maggie said, putting a few more bottles of pills into the bag. She and Glenn had talked to Shane and he'd given them permission to drive out to nearby towns to scout supplies for Lori and the baby.

"Yeah, well. He figured that having a few things ready for the baby would make Lori stop worrying about it so much. If she has a nursery to set up, she won't keep thinking about if the baby will be premature or overdue."

Maggie nodded in agreement and added a few more canisters of formula to the bag.

Glenn suddenly chuckled and held up a sewing kit when he got Maggie's attention. She grinned and he put the kit into the bag too. It didn't take up much room and it might come in useful. Plus, he really did feel sorry for Axel.

"Grab a few of those little onesies and diapers, too," Maggie suggested when Glenn was about to leave the room. He nodded and slipped a few into the bag, hoping Lori would be pleased, or at least brought out of her funk enough to appreciate that they wanted to help her take care of the baby. Children were few and far between in this new world and a baby would give the whole group something else to live for. It might even help get some out of the crazy out of Shane, but he didn't have much hope of that if the baby had Rick's blue eyes.

"Do you think Axel'll like his gift?" Glenn asked grinning as he and Maggie head back to load up the car.

Maggie rolled her eyes. "All I care is if it'll shut him up."

"Ch-" He jumped back and pulled a gun from his belt, staring in shock at the man with his arm around Maggie, a blade at her throat.

Merle laughed and shook his head. "I wouldn't do that if I were you, Jackie Chan. I can cut her neck a lot faster that you can put a bullet in my eye. Plus, I've got a little friend back there with a scope on you, so I suggest you put that little pea shooter down."

Glenn's hands trembled slightly at the thought of something happening to Maggie and he flinched when a bullet pierced the window of the car they were standing next to. His eyes darting around, trying to figure out where the shot had come from and how many more people there could be.

"Looks like you've been doing good since you left me tied up on that building. Got yourself a girl." He kicked at one of the bags on the ground and a canister of powdered formula rolled out. "And a baby on the way?" A let out a wolf whistle. "Your little swimmers move fast, hunh?"

Glenn glared at the man, then stared into Maggie's eyes. She was afraid, but she didn't want him to give up. But he was afraid of something happening to her, so he slowly lowered his gun to the ground. When he did, he felt a person come up behind him and bind his arms. A slow tear rolling down Maggie's face was the last thing he saw before a sharp pain flared across the back of his head and his vision went black.

* * *

"Could you make more noise?" Michonne wondered when Rick's heeled boots once again came down hard on the tiled roof and let out a sound like a gong.

"Yes, I could," Rick responded. "But I don't think it would be wise." He smirked when her eyes rolled and shifted past her so he could look at the next leap they would have to take to get to the weapon's storage.

"It's a good thing they built these houses so close together," Michonne said, shifting on the roof until she was beside him.

Rick agreed. It was making it awful easy for them to get close to the weapons they needed. They were having such an easy time that he was beginning to wonder if it might be a trap. The Governor seemed like a smart man. Would he let such an easy entry point go unguarded? But then again, everyone in Woodbury probably relied on the guards to take care of them. They wouldn't even think too hard about different ways to get into the weapons storage. And it seemed that everyone the Governor trusted had unlimited access. Except Andrea who was only allowed to carry a .45. Rick had never seen her with anything heavier except when she did wall duty, which wasn't often. She also did not seem to have free access to the weapon's storage. He remembered Andrea as being much too fierce to allow someone to tell her what weapon she could and could not use. But maybe she'd changed. Maybe she'd always been the kind of woman who liked to be next to the person in power.

"Let's try the limbs of that tree," Michonne suggested, pointing toward a large and sprawling oak draping it's branches between the roof they were on and the one they needed to get to.

Rick nodded and moved behind her, balancing carefully on the thick branches and trying not to make the limbs twitch more than the gentle breeze accompanying them on the balmy, almost Spring morning. While shifted from one bark roughened branch to another, he was wishing for a pair of tennis shoes rather than the awkward boots he wore. They were good enough on land, but they were giving him a hard time up in the branches. Even Michonne's combat boots were doing a much better job.

"What are you slowing around for?" Michonne asked, nearly to the other roof already, only a jump of about a foot and a half ahead of her.

"Who spent two hours peeking from behind a bush?" Rick demanded, breathing hard as he shifted carefully to the branch directly behind hers. He didn't want to risk chipping off a chunk of bark and alerting the men below.

"Both of us!" Michonne hissed as she leapt to the roof and landed like a cat, her grin triumphant and fierce.

Rick sighed, knowing there was no winning an argument with Michonne and finally reached the roof beside her. "So what's the plan? Chip one of these windows, hope no one hears, and make a clean get away… back across the roofs?"

Michonne shrugged as she paced on the nearly horizontal roof and studied the attic window. It appeared to be sealed shut on all sides, so just breaking it might be the best plan. But she had no idea of how many people might actually be _inside_ the weapons building, where they could be located, or if some kind of booby traps were set up. Their plan, while admittedly full of holes to begin with, was starting to look like the remnants of a spider's web. She shook her head. No. Anything was better than whatever fate awaited them inside Woodbury, be it being forced to live out their lives doing nothing and never knowing what happened to Rick's family or finally being killed by the Governor and his cronies. So she and Rick were going to follow through with their bare-bones of a plan whether it got them out or not.

"Since this window is most out of sight of any of the shorter buildings around here and has a bit of tree coverage, let's try digging out the sealant to see if we can open it. It shouldn't take much. It seems to be kind of plastic-y."

Rick nodded, not having a better idea. So they set to work wedging their knives into white sealant holding the dusted window to the framing.

"Do you think if we manage to pop out one of these panes you'll be able to fit through?"

Michonne measured the size of the opening that would be formed with her eyes and nodded. "It might take a bit of wriggling, but I think I can do it."

* * *

Glenn came to and tried to open his eyes, but realized they were pressed firmly closed with a strip of cloth. So he sat fearfully in darkness while the vehicle they traveled in rumbled over what felt to be paved road. His mind couldn't seem to process what was happening. Merle was alive and had held a blade to Maggie's neck. They wouldn't be able to get the formula back to the Prison. Shane would most likely not send out a rescue party. Maggie might be hurt. Dead. Where were they headed? Merle was alive.

_Maggie. _


	13. Chapter 13

~ As always my wonderful fans, thanks for reading, favoriting, and reviewing.

**Chapter 13 : Serpent**

"What's happening over there?" Michonne asked as Rick pried away the final piece of sealant. The gate on the far side of Woodbury was opening and two vehicles were rolling inside. And rather than stopping at the medical tent or the Governor's house, they continued to the final row of buildings lining the back wall of Woodbury.

She grabbed Rick's arm and directed his eyes toward the commotion.

Rick sighed and squinted hard at whatever Michonne was trying to show him. He frowned when the car doors opened and Merle and another of the guards pulled out two blindfolded figures, barely able to stand on their on feet. One of them appeared to be a shorter man with dark black hair and the other, a tall muscular woman with curly, auburn hair. He frowned when he realized there was something familiar about them.

"What is it?" Michonne asked, curious about the look on his face.

He continued to stare as they pulled and pushed at the pair in order to tug them into a warehouse-like building. "I don't know. I feel like I've seen them before. There's something really familiar about the man."

Michonne grabbed his elbow. "Do you think they could be another couple of people from that camp your son was part of?"

Rick swallowed down a lump of fear in his throat, afraid to allow himself to hope this much again. A little was okay, but too much could leave him weak in the knees and devastate him if he found that he'd run down yet another empty rabbit trail.

"I don't know. I was only with them for a couple of months. I've been away from them for far longer. I don't know."

Michonne rubbed his arm lightly. "What do you want to do?"

He frowned over at her. "Are you suggesting that we try to break them out too?"

"What if they know where your son is?"

"And what if they're just as crazy as these people?" Rick asked, gesturing toward the town of Woodbury.

Michonne narrowed her eyes at Rick, a little disappointed. "Sometimes it's like you don't want to find him."

Rick flinched back. Her words were like an arrow to his heart. Michonne immediately saw that, but she didn't take back her words. "It's not that. I'm just scared to really _believe." _He clenched a fist over his chest.

"Then I'll do all the believing for you," she said in her stoic voice with a slight smile. She squeezed his shoulder slightly. "I got you."

Rick glanced over at her, feeling an overwhelming desire to wrap her in a hug, but she didn't seem the type to go for that. "Fine. We'll break them out."

"No."

He frowned in confusion.

"We'll see if you recognize them first. Then we'll break them out." She gestured toward the window. "Now let's finish this while they're distracted. We won't be able to help anyone if we don't get those weapons."

* * *

Glenn tried not to flinch when the blindfold was suddenly tugged from his eyes, but he couldn't help it. The sudden intrusion of light and the two men holding weapons would not allow him to relax. He quickly glanced around the room for Maggie, but he didn't see her. He stared accusingly at his captors.

"Oh, don't worry about your little lady bird," Merle said, shifting from his leaning position against the far wall. He walked into the area lit by the single dingy bulb suspended from the ceiling. "We've got her nice and tied up in the room right next to yours." He tilted his head toward the wall on Glenn's right. "The Governor said he wanted to handle her personally."

The dark leer he laid on Glenn made him want to wash himself and his heart stutter with nerves for what could be happening to Maggie.

"Now," Merle said, settling on the wooden table in front of Glenn. "Why don't you tell me where you been staying at and what's happened to my little brother?"

"Daryl's alright," Glenn said through gritted teeth, keeping his eye on the wall the shielded Maggie from his view.

"If I catch you lying to me about my brother-"

"His hair is just as greasy as it was the last time you saw him."

Merle punched Glenn in the jaw. "Don't you talk about my baby brother." He chuckled when Glenn's glare landed on him. "But he sho' don't wash his hair."

He patted Glenn on the cheek. "Now, about that other question I asked you. Where ya'll set up?"

Glenn clenched his jaw tight and blinked angrily up at Merle.

Merle laughed and turned to the other guards. "And the say the Japanese ain't got spunk."

"I'm Kore-" The words were taken out of his mouth by the force of the blow Merle landed on his other cheek.

"You ain't gon' be nothing if you don't tell me what I want to know!" Merle said, getting down in his face. "Now tell me where you're set up!"

If anything, Glenn pressed his lips together more firmly.

Merle stared at him for a few seconds, then let out a little laugh. "Well, I guess this won't work on you." He turned to the black man behind him. "Bring it in."

The man stepped out of the room, then the sounds of a chain rattling, shuffling footsteps, and guttural groans began to pervade the room. Glenn glanced toward Merle who wore an overstretched grin, then focused his eyes on the door. He felt his heart thud in his chest when he saw a walker being pulled in. His eyes bulged in their sockets and he looked to Merle in disbelief.

Merle danced around the straining walker and smirked at Glenn from the doorway. "Have fun getting to know your new girlfriend while I get to know your old one."

_Maggie!_

Glenn strained at his bonds as the walker was unleashed and the other men headed out the door and shut it tight behind them.

* * *

"Those boots!" Michonne hissed.

Rick's lips pinched in frustration, but he kept his mouth closed. She would get onto him constantly talking and making more noise if he did, so he decided his best course of action was the high road. He and Michonne had climbed through the window a few minutes earlier and now they were at the door of the attic, hoping that the ladder that would allow them to make it down to the lower floor was still intact. He didn't want to think about what they would do if a guard or just a random passerby just moseyed in their path. They were desperate to get weapons and get out of Woodbury, and while he trusted Michonne, he'd seen what she could do to an enemy.

"Lift it slowly, and quietly," Michonne said, pointing to the ring on the trap door and pulling a knife off of her belt. The steak knife hadn't really looked that threatening until it was in Michonne's well-practiced hands.

Rick knelt beside the old door and slipped one of his fingers under the ring on the door. He began to tug at it gently, then glanced up at Michonne when it didn't budge.

She waved at him to try again and pull harder.

He sighed, hoping there wasn't a lock or booby trap keeping it in place until some idiot came along and started fiddling with it. He also hoped that the hinges wouldn't squeal in protest. The smoother this went, the better.

"What are you waiting for?"

Rick pinched the brow of his nose, then put both hands on the dented little ring and tugged it with all of his might. He let out a grunt of surprise when it gave a yowl and a pop when it separated from the twisted wood holding it in place and it's hinges let go of some of the rust they had been collecting over the years.

Rick plopped back on his butt, then quickly rolled to his knees and blinked down to carpeted floor now exposed by the opening in the attic.

Michonne was doing the same and beginning to chew on her lower lip in frustration.

"What?" Rick asked, nerves on edge.

Michonne slipped her knife back into her belt and folded her well-muscled arms across her chest. "There's no ladder."

* * *

_Please, _Maggie's voice both whispered and screamed inside her head. _Please._ But she refused to say it out loud. She refused to let them know how much she was suffering, how afraid she was, and how much the sound of Glenn's screams and grunts of pain and frustration broke her heart. _What are they doing to you, Glenn?_

"If you want it to stop," The Governor said, leaning across the table and resting his elbows on the surface. "You'll tell us where your camp is."

Maggie's chin quivered with the desire to protect Glenn and her father back with the others at the Prison. There was so much more at stake if they let these people into their Prison, but Glenn…

"I see that Glenn doesn't matter as much to you as you'd like him to think he does," the Governor said with a wicked grin.

He leaned back and casually pulled a gun from his belt, aiming it toward Maggie. "Take off your top."

* * *

Michonne and Rick dropped carefully through the hole left by the trap door, making sure to relax their legs and fully bend their knees when they landed so they wouldn't break a leg or twist an ankle on the when they hit the floor.

"Which way do you think we should go first?" Rick asked, looking at the number of doors lining the hallway and the stairs leading down to the first floor.

"Since no one has popped out of the woodwork yet, I'm thinking we head to where Andrea said they're keeping the weapons."

"But if she was lying…"

"If she was lying," Michonne continued. "Then we're just as screwed as we had no clue at all. If she's got a trap waiting for us, at least we'll have a chance to get some weapons out of the fight."

"And if we lose the fight?"

"Pessimist," Michonne said with a smile, tapping him lightly on the arm. "Come on."

Maggie trembled as she pulled her tank top up and over her head. They could beat her, they could mutilate her, they could humiliate her. As long as she was alive, she had a chance to see Glenn and her father again.

A tear slipped from her eye when the Governor gestured for her to remove her bra too.

Rick stood in front of the locked cage of guns, Michonne beside him glaring at her sword presented like a trophy in a slot above the gun racks. She laid her hand against the padlock, then flipped it up to study the base.

"Do you think you could pick this?" She asked rick, angling the key hole toward him.

One of his brows lowered. "I was a cop, not a crook."

She let out a little sigh and started digging into her dreads. "I think I have a bobby pin in here somewhere."

Rick frowned at her. "You can pick a lock?" He sized her up from the back, wondering if maybe she had been some sort of criminal in her past life and that's why she wouldn't tell him anything.

"I've never tried before." She grinned when she found a bobby pin and knelt down to wedge it into the lock. "I've always wanted to do this."

"Rick grinned a little and shook his head. She was an odd woman. While she worked at the lock, he pulled one of his knives out of his belt and turned to face the two entrances to the weapons room. He might not be able to do much against attackers without a gun, but at least he would be able to warn Michonne and at least one of them could get out of Woodbury alive.

* * *

Glenn grunted as he rolled away from the walker. He'd managed to break his chair, but his arms were still tied to the arms of the chair, and while the broken shards of wood worked as weapons and guards against the bite of the walker, they made some movements difficult. He growled as the walker knocked into a broom and sent it tumbling against his already bruised legs.

_Dammit, Merle, if I ever see you again!_

* * *

"We should just find something to pry it off," Rick said for the third time. He could practically feel time and their luck slipping away.

"I almost got it," Michonne hissed, feeling metal parts shift around inside the padlock.

"We could have gotten it a half our ago," Rick huffed under his breath.

"What?!"

Rick just shook his head and continued to check the entrances. His shoulders tensed when he thought he heard the scuff of a boot on the carpeted hallway on his left, but when he turned he saw nothing, but he did not relax again.

"Got it!" Michonne whispered fiercely. Rick let out the breath he hadn't known he was holding and began to pack guns and ammo alongside Michonne. He could see her visibly brighten once she had her sword on her back again, and he himself felt rather more hopeful now that his machete was back at his waist.

"Now," Michonne said, flexing her back and glancing toward Rick. "Let's go see about those prisoners."


	14. Chapter 14

~ I'm really thankful for the number of comments I've been seeing on my story. They really keep me motivated because I want to put out new chapters for you guys. ~

Chapter 14 : Neon

"Michonne, do you hear that?" Rick asked, tilting his head in the darkness beneath the bushes surrounding the tin warehouses they'd seen the two strangers taken to.

Michonne cocked her head, then nodded. Screams. The sound of a fight. Weeping. Those people were being tortured.

"Why do you think they're torturing them instead of just putting them in the community like they did us?" Rick asked, his hand gripping the long knife attached to his belt. "Do you think it's because they know something?"

Michonne nodded, her eyes glittering in the darkness. "Which means they probably know something we want to know too."

Rick couldn't help but agree. If the people of Woodbury found the information these two held so desirable that they did not kill them outright, then it must be another town, a place for supplies, something. And it could lead to more information about his family. He turned to Michonne, "So how are we going to do this?"

They'd walked around the back and one side of the building to reach it after sneaking back through the roof of the weapon's building using a rope and the broken handle of a broom to make a crossbeam in the trap door so they could climb back up. Then they'd immediately headed in the direction of the warehouses, hoping they weren't too late. By the sounds of it, they weren't, but if they waited any longer, they might be.

"We've got to go in fast."

"I was hoping we could sneak out quietly," Rick admitted. "Be miles away from here before they realized we were gone. But I know I wouldn't feel right leaving those people in there."

Michonne dropped an arm on his shoulder. "If we go in with guns blazing, they're going to fire back and injured or dead wasn't the way I wanted to be running out of here."

Rick agreed wholeheartedly. "So…"

Michonne shook her head and turned her attention back to the buildings, hoping something would come to her before the screams and crying stopped. "So."

* * *

The governor grinned as Maggie trembled and cried, her bra a discarded covering on the table. "So, are you going to tell me where your little village is?"

"You can do whatever you want to me," she hissed. "I'm not telling you anything."

She tried to ignore the sounds of Glenn struggling for his life in the other room. He wouldn't want her to weaken. If he didn't weaken, she refused to as well. Her shoulders shook as she tried to hold back her tears.

"Girl-"

The sharp sound of splintering wood broke through his interrogation. Maggie gasped and turned toward the room holding Glenn because that's where the sound had come from. The blast of gunfire punctured the night, then silence.

Maggie pulled her shirt back and and shuffled backwards, her knees on the brink of collapse. _Glenn!_

* * *

Glenn pulled the wooden stake from the brains of the zombie and stared in shock at the two people standing before him. Two guards could be seen dead on the ground in front of the building, blood seeping in through the entrance. He was still full of adrenaline so it took him a while to recognize the man, but when his eyes finally focused, he felt his throat almost close in startlement.

"Rick," he gasped.

Rick nearly tumbled to the ground in amazement. "Glenn?" He rushed forward and grasped Glenn's shoulders in his hands. "Glenn?"

Michonne stepped toward them and pried Rick's hands off of Glenn's shoulders. "We don't have time for this. We have to get the woman."

"Maggie!" Glenn whispered. Rick pulled away from him and handed him a gun.

"Should we-"

"We're going through the wall," Glenn cut in. "They'll never expect that."

Michonne and Rick glanced at each other, then nodded. It was as good a plan as any.

* * *

The Governor turned toward the door to the room in which he liked to intimidate and interrogate prisoners and called out to one of his guards. "Get some more men here. Check on that other prisoner. Something-"

The words were taken from his mouth when the wall to his right exploded inward, the tin and plank construction flying to pieces as it hit the floor and three people stepped through the rubble, gun's trained into the room. Rick fired a shot without a second thought at the men in the room. They were there to rescue the woman. Anyone else was inconsequential. Glenn grabbed Maggie by the arm and they darted back out through the wall with Michonne and Rick right on their heels, trying not to think about who'd been shot in that room and who could still be behind them. Rick kept his eyes over his shoulder hoping that more men wouldn't come pouring out of the woodwork.

* * *

"I don't know if we can get out of here tonight," Michonne hissed to Rick when they heard the sound of more boots on dirt and pavement.

"We've got to," Rick growled, ducking when he heard a bullet fire.

"If we could find somewhere to lay low-"

"No!" Rick said, grabbing Glenn's arm and pulling him behind a tree when a bullet took out a tree limb next to his head. "We're getting out of here tonight. We've got a map. We've just got to slip these guys and find that weak spot in the wall."

Michonne agreed and turned them further into the woods, leading them to the left, almost in the direction of the gunmen. "Climb the threes," she rasped out. "Find one that's out of the way of the path we're on. We've got to split up. Once you feel like you've slipped 'em, follow the wall to the right until you reach the lowest point and get over it and hide in the woods as soon as possible. We'll try to find each other from there."

Rick nodded and grabbed her elbow before she could spin off into the night. "Be careful."

* * *

Maggie tried not to let her breath rasp out through her mouth as she dodged hanging limbs and dried sticks scattered over the ground. She could hear men further back in the woods and she longed to have Glenn next to her, but he'd already found a tree to climb. He'd been reluctant to leave her, but the more spread out they were, the easier it would be to slip around someone if they were alone.

She gripped the gun tightly in her hand and gritted her teeth in determination. She saw a tree in the distance with a strong-looking branch a few feet off of the ground. She dashed toward it, hoping the people behind her hadn't seen in which direction she was heading. She wrapped her arms tight around it and pulled herself into higher branches as quickly as possible. Just to make sure they still thought she was headed in the other direction, or at least still moving, she took the collection of rocks from her pocket that dark woman with Rick had advised they take, and started throwing them at random intervals as hard as she could in different directions through the forest when the silence began to fill occupied by a hunter's stillness. She would then hear movement and knew she'd made the right choice in sending them off in a different direction. She only had to do this three times before the night felt empty and the thoughts of what could happen next could creep in.

* * *

Rick had chosen not to climb a tree and had instead made his way toward the wall. He was impatient to get out of Woodbury, impatient to ask Glenn if Carl was still alive.

"Rick!"

He heard the click of a gun and slowly raised his hands up above his head.

"You know you're not allowed to leave."

A heavy sigh pulled his shoulders up and down as he turned to face the person holding him at gunpoint.

"Andrea," he sighed, a desperate gleam in his eye. He felt like he was so close. Glenn might know something and the wall was only five feet away from him. "Please. We won't tell anyone. We promise."

Her teeth were bared in uncertainty and she kept glancing over her shoulder.

"Please." The word slipped out like sob. "Please."

"I don't want to you. Let me just take you ba-"

"Do you know what they'll do to us if you take us back? The tie us up and torture us like they did Maggie and Glenn or they'll kill us on sight."

Andrea blinked in surprise, but held her gun steady. "Maggie and Glenn are here?"

Rick tilted his head. "The Governor didn't tell you."

Her eyes squinted in suspicion, but as far as she knew, Rick wasn't a lier and this seemed like something he wouldn't lie about. What purpose could he have… other than trying to turn her against the Governor.

"He had them locked up about half a mile from here and was torturing them for information."

"You're lying."

"I have no reason to lie."

"Other than you want me to let you go."

Rick felt himself beginning to panic. He didn't want to kill Andrea. He didn't even know if he could get to his gun before got shot. "Andrea, please. Don't do this. They'll kill me."

Andrea studied him again. He seemed genuinely desperate not to be taken back to Woodbury.

"Come with me," he tried. "Please. Things aren't like you think they are here."

Andrea felt her past friendship with Rick tugging at her while her current loyalties held her in their grasp as well. He really wasn't the type to go back on his word, and when one of the worst people she'd known, Merle, got left behind in zombie-ridden Atlanta, he'd convinced the others to go back for him. She slowly lowered her gun and slipped it back into her holster.

Rick felt his shoulder's slump in relief. "Thank you. Thank you." He headed toward the wall and climbed over, feeling her eyes on his back. "Thank you," he continued to whisper as he made it over the wall. "Thank you."

* * *

Michonne quickly and quietly snuck up behind yet another gunman and separated his head from his body with a single stroke of her sword. The fewer men there were wandering around, the better their chances of getting out of the woods. She quickly darted off and disappeared into another tree.

"Woah!"

She froze when she found another person in the branch above hers with a gun directed toward her head. She sighed in relief when she saw it was the Asian man that Rick had called Glenn.

"I almost had a heart attack," Glenn whispered.

Michonne held her finger to her lips, then stared off into the night time darkness.

"Do you think everyone else is still okay?"

"I don't know about them, but I know we won't be if you don't stay quiet."

He nodded in agreement, but the silence was making him extremely nervous.

"Do you think they're gone?"

Michonne blew out a long breath and rolled her eyes to the heavens. She wished Rick would have warned her that Glenn was a talker. She considered heading back down the tree and taking her chances in the forest.

"We won't know until we try to head to the wall," she finally answered.

Glenn glanced down at her for a while, then he slowly and agily lowered himself down to Michonne's branch. He crouched in the corner close to her. "So who are you?"

She assumed he was asking her name. "Michonne."

He glanced her up and down. "How do you know Rick?"

She shrugged. "We've saved each others life once or twice."

Glenn nodded and looked at her out of the sides of his eyes wondering if something romantic were going on between the two. He wondered if Michonne even knew about Rick's family or if Rick even thought that his family was still alive. He shook his head, thinking about what would happen when they got Rick back to the prison and he saw Shane. They would all finally know what really happened between the two men in the forest, because it was quite clear that Rick was not as dead as Shane had claimed. And what would Lori think when she saw Rick alive again? What would she do? And the bigger question, what would Shane do?

"I think it's safe for us to go down," Michonne said, starting to head out of the tree. But Glenn grabbed her shoulder, causing her to stop.

"Wait, do you guys have somewhere to go after this?"

Michonne blinked at him in confusion. "We thought you guys might have a place to go. Rick and I have been living out in the woods, staying away from the walkers where we can and surviving on what we could find. You mean ya'll don't have a safe place? Why were they torturing you then?"

Glenn struggled on whether to tell her, thinking about all of the conflict that would follow were he to lead Rick back to the prison. But he knew he shouldn't turn his back on Rick like that. Rick had done nothing to deserve it. And he couldn't imagine whaMt Rick was going through if Rick thought his family was dead.

He turned to Michonne, "We do have a place, but… Rick…"

Michonne's brow crinkled, wondering why Glenn was so nervous about what he needed to say. "What?"

"Has he told you about his family?" Glenn asked, needing to know how informed Michonne was with what had happened between Rick and Shane.

"He told me they got snatched away by his partner Rick and the man tried to kill him."

Glenn's eyebrows shot up to his hairline. "Wow, that's a much different story that what Shane told us."

Michonne cocked her head to one side. "What story did he tell?"

"There was a fight with some walkers and Rick got turned, then he had to put him down - which is clearly untrue."

Michonne nodded. "Wow."

Glenn gnawed on his lip and stared out into the now silent darkness. "Yeah well, whatever Rick told you is true. Shane must have tried to kill him and thought he succeeded. Boy is he going to be surprised when you two show up. I'm just scared about what he's going to do. Shane isn't exactly the most stable man I know."

Michonne agreed wholeheartedly. Someone who took his friend out in the woods and tried to kill him in cold blood wasn't exactly someone you wanted to spring a surprise on.

"And Lori-"

Michonne turned toward him so fast Glenn's mouth clamped shut. "Rick's wife is alive?" She grabbed his by his upper arms. "His son, Carl. Is Carl alive?"

Glenn nodded and was surprised when Michonne's dark eyes brightened with tears. She quickly wiped them away, but it was clear Rick had told Michonne a lot about his family and she cared a lot about what this news would mean to Rick.

He was glad she seemed like a good person. They didn't need any more psychos than the one they already had at the prison.

"I guess we should head out of this place and get Rick back to his family as soon as possible. Carl has really missed him."

Michonne frowned at the tone in his voice. "And his wife?"

Glenn shrugged. "She's another story entirely."


	15. Chapter 15

~ Thank you guys for liking, reading, and commenting on my story. I know my last chapter had a bit of a mistake the first time I posted it. I hope not to repeat that again.

**Chapter 15 : Forthright**

Rick waited in the woods on the other side of the fence surrounding Woodbury. He had yet to spot Maggie, Glenn, or Michonne and he was beginning to get worried although the sunrise was still about two hours off. He was still tense about running into Andrea before he got over the fence and he couldn't be sure she wouldn't eventually break and tell the Governor that she knew in which direction he had escaped. Waiting right outside the weakest point in the fence was beginning to seem more and more like a dumb idea. He was just about to move positions when he heard footsteps crunching through the dying undergrowth. He froze, even slightly halting his breathing in order to hear better. It could be any number of people or things passing underneath his tree; a walker, a guard from Woodbury, or Michonne.

"Whee-whee."

The soft whistle like the chitter of a small bird came through the trees and Rick couldn't help but feel relief come over him. He let out a similar sound and he heard the shuffle of feet grow louder as they came nearer his tree.

"Rick," he heard Michonne hiss, so he dropped down from the branch he'd been pressed into. He almost pulled her into a hug, but instead he just smiled and clasped her on the shoulder. But, surprising him, she stepped closer to him and pulled him into a tight, one-armed hug, her head resting, surprisingly, beneath his chin. Before he could get used to it, she pulled away and smiled up at him.

"Glenn has some good news for you."

His brow scrunched together, wondering what the news would be that it would make Michonne act the way she did. Before he could even form a guess, Glenn stepped out of the darkness, his teeth gleaming in the night. Although the look in his eyes screamed that he wasn't too sure how best to present his information.

"Rick-"

"Your family's alive!" Michonne broke in, gripping his arms. "Lori and Carl are alive!"

Rick felt all of the strength drain out of his legs. He felt them shake and had to steady himself against a tree. "What?"

Michonne, nearly holding him up at this point looked into his eyes, making sure he understood her. "Your son," her grin was so wide he could see all of her teeth. "Your son is alive."

Rick felt tears streaming down his face before the news truly hit him. "Carl?" he whispered in confusion.

Maggie came crashing through the trees having tripped on a root sticking nearly three inches up out of the ground. Glenn instinctively reached out and caught her before she could hit the ground and she smiled at him in gratitude and relief at having found them without having to search through the woods for another half hour.

"Come on man!" Glenn whispered. "We don't have time for you to process this. We've got to get out of here before someone else stumbles up on us as easy as Maggie did."

Michonne agreed wholeheartedly. She didn't want their chances of finding Rick's family compromised now that they were so close, not that he no longer had to hold onto a thin sliver of hope but had reality waiting for him. "Come on," she said, gently smacking both of his cheeks. "Your son's waiting for you."

* * *

"The baby's about to come!" Shane snarled, stalking back and forth in front of the nervous group hovering around a panicking and pained Lori. Her hands were clamped at her sides and her body kept curling around her rounded stomach in pain.

"Where are Glenn and Maggie?" He wondered for the tenth time. They should have been back with supplies hours ago. He didn't need the worry of their missing on top of the danger Lori was in having her baby without the aide of a hospital. If they had just taken the chance to run out on him, they would regret it if he ever found them again. Lori had finally brightened after weeks of laying in a stupor once she found out that Maggie was going to find baby clothes she could use for the child when it finally came. There'd bit a little bit of color in her cheeks again.

He pushed through Carol and Hershel and grabbed Lori's hand again. "Isn't there something you can give her?"

Dale gave Shane a hawk eyed stare from the edge of the room. "They've already told ya twice that all you have to do is wait. Women have been pushing out babies by themselves for years."

Shane whirled around on him and Dale flinched back. "Keep your mouth shut old man."

Dale snorted through his nose and turned to face the opposite wall while Shane turned his attention back to the panting Lori.

"Her contractions aren't that close together," Carol said, laying her hand carefully on Shane's shoulder. "Some women are in labor for more than twenty-four hours. Sophia had me laid up for _thirteen_ hours. The baby will come when it comes."

* * *

"How much further?" Rick asked Glenn as he walked briskly behind him through the densely packed forest. "It feels like we've been walking for hours, "he huffed. Now that he knew where his son was and most importantly, that he was alive, Rick was a bit impatient to reach their destination.

"Well, we have," Glenn replied in his usually flippant manner. "They drove us quite a distance away from our prison."

Rick shook his head at that. Having once been a man of the law, it now seemed strange that people would seek shelter within the walls of a prison.

"How did you two get captured anyway?" Metronome asked, hacking at a spider web with her hand when the sticky strands surprised her and clung to her eyelashes. "If they got you near the prison, then it can't be safe there. They'll know to look for us."

Glenn shook his head and glanced at Maggie. "No.. We were a few miles away on a supply run."

Maggie nodded in agreement." Yeah, they shouldn't be able to follow our path back to the prison."

Rick hoped not. He would hate to have his family right at his fingertips only to have them snatched away again. And while he was happy about reuniting with his family, he was also nervous. How would Carl react when he found out that his dad was alive? Would he ran to him immediately? Would he shoot him on sight as one of the returned dead? Hell, would he even care that Rick wasn't actually dead? He'd been close to Shane and might actually be glad that he no longer had to be wary of his affection around the two.

He quickly shook that thought off. There was no way he would have to fight for Carl's affections once he reappeared alive. He wasn't so sure about Lori. He wasn't even sure if he should care how Lori would feel. Especially not after how quickly she'd turned to Shane when everything had fallen apart. Carl was just a kid. Lori on the other hand was a full grown woman who was supposed to be committed to him and only him until death did they part. Or up until at least a year after they parted. And if she'd gone back to him after what Shane had attempted to do to him, that was just plain unforgivable.

After nearly two more hours of walking with the occasional question from Maggie or Glenn, Michonne began to feel a little bit stressed in their company. They kept asking her about her _life before_. She glanced over her shoulder at the man she'd rescued so many months ago. He would never know that when she'd rescued him, he'd rescued her at the same time. She'd been nearly numb with grief, and anger, and pain. Finding someone to fight for and with had changed all that.

"What are you the thinking about so hard back here?" Michonne asked, walking slower so she could be next to Rick.

He glanced over at her worried eyes, considering the strength he also saw within them. Thinking about how happy she was for him when she'd found out his family was out there waiting for him, he couldn't help but wonder about the story she'd never to him. Her story.

He shook his head, knowing that now was not the time to ask her. She wield tell him when she wanted to tell him. When the time was right-for her.

"Just thinking about seeing my family."

She clapped a hand on his shoulder and said with a smile, "I'm happy for you."

He shrugged and brushed the leafed limbs of a there out of his way as he kept a few feet behind Maggie and Glenn. "I'm happy to see Carl." He tilted his head. "My wife, not so much."

Michonne's eyebrows rose in surprise "Really?"

Rick nodded. "After I found out she was sleeping with my best friend, I thought I could forgive her because she just needed someone. But in the back of my mind, I don't think I ever really did. And now, after what Shane did to me?" he shook his head. "Anyway, I don't really want to think about it anymore until she's standing right in front of me."

Michonne nodded in understanding. "So, what do you want to talk about?" She looked ahead to Maggie and Glenn. "It's weird being around two people I don't really know that well, but if you say we can trust them-"

Rick let out a little smile. "Glenn is a good guy. I didn't get to know Maggie that well, but she seemed like a sweet girl. She's been through a few things since then, but I don't think that's changed."

Michonne couldn't help but agree. There was something about Maggie's face that seemed suited for a smile even though there was a deep pain in her eyes. Probably from loss. There was no one who hadn't lost any one in this mess of a world.

Rick glanced over his shoulder and noticed the slight darkening of Michonne's expression as she looked at the young couple in front of them. He wondered what it was about, but reminded himself to be patient.

"We should pick up a present for Carl," Michonne said, breaking out of her thoughts. "What's something he would like?"

Rick grinned at the thoughtfulness behind Michonne's idea. Sure, Carl would probably be excited to have him back, but it would be nice to get his son a gift. Kids loved gifts.

"What do you think it should be?" Rick asked, after thinking for a while and realizing that his mind was blank.

Michonne's brow scrunched together. "How old is he?"

"Twelve…"

"Hmmm…." Michonne ducked under a branch, but didn't see the root of the large oak tree poking up through the ground. She stumbled slightly, but Rick caught her around the waist, pulling her back against himself. She moved to get away from him immediately, but he held her in place.

"Are you okay?"

Michonne scoffed a little. "Of course." She shifted her left foot forward to take a step, then hissed in pain when she landed on it. "Ah!"

Rick shook his head. "Hey, Maggie! Glenn!"

They stopped and turned to look back at him, then frowned in confusion when they saw him holding onto Michonne.

"What is it?" Glenn asked.

"Michonne twisted her ankle. Let's get her fixed up before we go on."

Michonne pushed at his arm. "No. I'm fine. I can keep goi-Ah!"

Rick lifted her up off her feet, a bit surprised at how light she seemed even though she was so heavily muscled. He sat her down on a fallen tree, then knelt in front of her, his attention on her ankle.

"Shift around, but stop when it hurts. I know you probably didn't break anything, but if you pulled the wrong thing, we might have to move slower."

Michonne sighed and let him worry about her. She twisted her ankle from front to back, then pointed and flexed her foot, holding back the little hiss of pain when she felt a twinge. "I think it's just a little sprained. I've got some elastic wraps in my pack."

"You sure?" Rick asked, studying her face, knowing that she was good at holding back when she was in pain. She'd scraped her arm on a thorn bush a few months back and hadn't said a thing to him.

She nodded. "I can take care of it," she said, taking her pack off of her back and sitting it on the ground.

"Good," Glenn said, stepping up closer to them. "We should be at the prison within the hour."

Rick smiled and put a hand on Michonne's knee. "Alright. As long as you're not really hurt. If you find that it's hard for you to keep going. Just say something. I don't want you permanently crippled 'cause o' me."

Michonne studied his face for a moment, then nodded. "Alright."

* * *

"What's that?" Daryl asked, a change in the sounds outside of the prison alerting him that something wasn't going on. Usually the low moans or shuffles of walkers was the only thing that could be heard within the walls, but now there was a rumble over those sounds, growing louder, as if a vehicle was driving closer to the prison walls.

"Go check it out!" Shane growled without taking his eyes off of a sweating Lori who still seemed no closer to birthing her baby. He was really beginning to worry that something was wrong, no matter what Carol or Hershel said.

Daryl gestured to T-Dog who picked up a knife and gun and followed him out of the prison.

"Shane gettin' on my last nerve, man."

Daryl gave his usual uncaring shrug, but the sneer on his face was easily read. He didn't spend much time around Shane unless it was to get Carl away from Shane trying to play dad to the sad boy, but Shane was dancing on his last nerve too. The man was insane and obsessive.

"And who knows what happened to Maggie and Glenn."

"They went on a run," Daryl said, blinking out into the darkness, the sound of a vehicle approaching becoming even more clear. "That's probably them coming back now."

T-Dog sniffed his disbelief but decided to leave the topic alone until it was proved one way or the other.

"Wonder what took 'em so long?" T-Dog wondered.

"Well, mighta taken 'em a while to find a place, ya know? Lotta places been raided these days."

T-Dog nodded and checked his weapon as they came up to the gate. Walkers were pressed around the edges with their fingers grasping through the weave of the fence. Just as he reached it, a vehicle rolled up to the gate, headlights left off, he guessed not to attract more walkers than they had to, then the lights blinked twice as they'd agreed to signal each other. Daryl gestured that he would take care of the walkers while T-Dog pulled open the fence. In complete agreement, the moved like a well-oiled machine.

Daryl glanced at T-Dog and stepped up to the crack in the gate and T-Dog immediately unlocked the chain and began to roll back the opened of the fence. Daryl put his crossbow on his back and stabbed walkers in the head with his long knife as the car rolled into the prison yard. It wasn't until it was halfway through that he realized it wasn't one of the ones they originally had. Glenn and Maggie had left in a Chevrolet. This car was slightly larger and a much darker color.

He frowned and moved to the driver's side of the car while T-Dog closed the gate. He took his crossbow off of his back, loaded it, and angled it at the glass just in case someone had captured Glenn or Maggie and tortured them to get the location of the prison and any signals they would need to identify themselves. He sighed in relief and lowered the weapon when the window scrolled down to reveal Glenn's bloody, but recognizable face. Then he jerked it up again when he realized there might be enemies occupying the other seats.

Glenn made a gesture over his shoulder and the other windows begin to roll down too - the car obviously had manual handles.

Maggie leaned across Glenn and smiled and waved at Daryl who gave her a short, jerk of his head back before turning his attention to the fact that the back windows were lowering simultaneously, which meant Glenn and Maggie had guests.


	16. Chapter 16

~ Wow, some of you guys are really consistent commentors, and I love that. I see that a lot of you are worried that Lori won't live to regret her actions against Rick, but I can only say that you have to read more to find out. And thank you all who say you love my story and can't wait for updates. It really lights a fire under me to at least try to get one of these out each week. :D

Chapter 16 : Reality

"Come out with your hands up," Daryl growled, shifting back from the car as the windows rolled down and the doors began to open. He kept his crossbow raised and positioned so his eye stared down the scope. T-Dog, on the other side of the car, took his gun out of its holster and trained it on the opposite side of the car.

A dark haired man in surprisingly clean clothes and sharp blue eyes unfolded himself from the car and stood up to his full height. "Hey, Daryl…" he drawled in his rough, and low voice. "It's been a while."

Daryl's mouth dropped open and he couldn't help but stagger backwards in shock. The man was supposed to be dead. His eyes flicked over to the other side of the car to see if another person had risen from the dead, but wasn't a zombie would step out, but instead a dark-skinned woman with dreads who he'd never seen before popped up and glared at him and T-Dog as if she were offended they held a gun on them.

"You're dead man…"

Rick grinned slightly with a sad look shadowing his eyes. "Well, I ain't."

Daryl shook his head and wiped his mouth with his hand. "Who's that?"

"I can speak for myself," Michonne said with a bit of a huff when Daryl didn't just direct the question at her.

T-Dog gripped his gun and moved toward her threateningly, so Michonne reached over her shoulder and grabbed the hilt of her sword. Rick held up his hand toward them and moved around to the car until he reached Michonne's side.

"They're just nervous," he whispered. "I have to say that I trust this welcome a lot more than I trusted the one we got at Woodbury."

Michonne slowly lowered her hand from her sword, but didn't take her eyes off T-Dog. "I'm Michonne," she growled.

"What kinda name is that?" Daryl asked with a chuckle that quickly went away when she turned her dark eyes on him, her scowl still firmly intact.

"Mine."

Daryl nodded slowly in agreement. "Okay," he said, lowering his crossbow.

Glenn stepped out of the car, Maggie coming around to stand at his side, wrapping an arm around his waist. "Now that you guys are done pissin' all over the ground, can we go inside? I need to clean myself up. We've been walking for hours, and Glenn's got a busted lip I want to tend to."

"I'm sure that at all you're going to be tending to," T-Dog said with a laugh.

Maggie rolled her eyes, but Glenn grinned hopefully.

Daryl slung his crossbow over his back, then hesitantly walked up to Rick. He gripped Rick's forearm in a handshake. "It's good to see you, man."

"You, too," Rick muttered. "But there's someone I want to see a whole lot more than you."

Daryl nodded in understanding. "Your family."

Rick drew in a shaky breath, then let it out slowly when he felt Michonne's hand on his back. "My family," he sighed. "I'm about to see my family."

Daryl scanned Rick up and down, then glanced over at Michonne, wondering where Rick hand found her and what their relationship was. She didn't seem upset that he had a family to go to. She seemed supportive, so they probably weren't knocking boots or nothin'.

"Lori's having a baby."

Rick's head shot up. "What?!"

"Right now actually. Don't know who's it is. Long enough for it to be yours I guess. Short enough for it to be Crazy Shane's."

The news somehow didn't hit Rick that hard. His faith in Lori had taken a hard knock and nothing was going to build that up again. But if the baby was his… naw, he didn't know what to think about it. He instead just shook his head.

"I just want to see my son. I just want to see Carl."

"I understand."

"And I've got something to tell you too," Rick said, clasping Daryl on the shoulder. "We saw Merle."

—

Rick shambled into the prison behind Daryl and T-Dog, Michonne stuck closely to his side, hobbling slightly now that the pain of her ankle was catching up to her after sitting in the backseat of the car for nearly a half hour. The thought of Carl being somewhere up ahead kept him in a bit of a fog. I didn't seem real. He was almost afraid of seeing Carl. Afraid that the illusion would shatter when they finally met and he would find that this was all some dream he was having back on that Atlanta road, a walker's teeth sunk deep in his arm and no Michonne to come and save him. His feet almost slowed to a stop, but Michonne constantly prodding him in the ribs kept him upright.

"Stop spacing out," Michonne said with a chuckle.

"Is this real?" He asked, looking down at her.

She nodded. "The pain in my ankle is, that's for sure. Do you want me to slap you around a little bit until you realize you ain't dreaming? Cause I'll do that for you"

Rick frowned down at her feet. "I thought you said you were okay."

"I am. Good enough to be there when you see your son. Then I'm going to take Daryl up on that offer of a nice, comfy prison cell, and I'm going to let myself drift right off to dreamland," she said a bit sarcastically, not really looking forward to sleeping behind bars every night.

"Ahhhhhhhhhh!"

A scream suddenly broke through the halls of the prison cell and Daryl and T-Dog broke into a run. Rick and Michonne followed a little more slowly.

"What do you think that is?" Michonne wondered, worried that zombies might have gotten inside and they would have to fight on their first night in the new place and she wasn't exactly at the top of her game.

Rick's face was pale and looked waxy in the dim light of Daryl's retreating flashlight. "Probably Lori having her baby," he said grimly, picking up his pace and wrapping an arm around Michonne's waist to help keep her off her foot. "Come on. We don't exactly want to get lost in all the twists and turns of this place. Daryl said there are still a few places they might not have cleaned up."

Michonne nodded and hopped at his side so they could run to catch up with Daryl. They ended up moving through a series of branching hallways until they reached a much larger room, brightened by scores of candles lit and resting on cabinets, tables, and window sills. It looked to be the prison infirmary. People Rick thought he would never see again were seated on beds or standing around, but all facing a woman propped up on one of the beds, her legs spread, but hooded by a blue sheet. Dale was hurrying to her side to stick a leather belt between her teeth to halt her screams. They didn't want to risk a walker attack.

Rick froze at the edge of the grey-tiled room. Hearing that Lori was having a baby and seeing it were two different things. He watched as her back arched off of the bed repeatedly while low grunts of pain came out of her throat, sweat trickling down her face and neck as contractions and Hershel's urgings forced her to push. Shane was crouched at her side, wiping sweat off of her brown and whispering encouragements. Rick couldn't believe how fast the blood began to boil in his chest when his eyes fell on the man who'd once been his best friend. The man had tried to kill him, now he was having a child with his wife?!

Michonne felt Rick's hand ball into a fist at her side and knew that he must have seen Shane. Thinking about what he'd done to Rick, made her a little more than angry as well. She puffed out a low breath, then took a calming one in through her nose. They weren't here to cause trouble. They weren't here for revenge.

"Is that your boy over there?" She asked, pointing to a small shape nearly hidden in the shadows of the room. Instead of standing at his mother's side, he was pressed against the wall by a cabinet and nervously rotating a large hat between his hands.

Rick glanced over to where she was pointing and felt the breath nearly constrict his chest. "Carl," he whispered. All thoughts of Shane immediately disappearing from his mind. Carl was all that mattered. Not Shane. Not Lori. Not that baby being born that belonged to only God knew who. Carl was what mattered.

"He doesn't see you yet," Michonne said with a smile, feeling Rick's breath quicken against her side. "You gonna make the first move?"

He grinned down at her, but before he could step across the room, Lori let out a final groan and the sound of a child's cry filled the room and Lori collapsed back on the bed in relief.

Shane kissed her forehead and turned to Hershel, reaching for he child as the old farmer cut the cord.

"It's a little baby girl," Hershel said, a wide smile on his face. As much as he disliked Shane, he loved babies, and taking care of this one would give them all a new purpose in this new world. "Real tiny, just like her mama," he said, giving Lori's knee a squeeze. He gestured to Carol who began to wipe away the fluids from the child as Hershel massaged the afterbirth from Lori.

"What are you gonna name her?" Carol asked, finally depositing the child against Lori's chest, ignoring Shane to make her way to the side of the mother instead.

"Before you name that baby," T-Dog broke in. "I think it would be nice to know who the daddy is and what the hell Shane meant when he told us Rick was dead."

Shane's head finally lifted from his singular attention on Lori and that baby and began to take in information around the room. The first thing he realized was that there were a lot more people in the room. Glenn was back, so was Maggie. And near the entrance to the room were two extra silhouettes.

He glanced over at T-Dog who was positioned near a scowling Daryl. "What?"

Rick slowly made his way out of the shadows and gasps slowly erupted around the room when people begin to realize that a man they'd thought was long dead was standing before them.

"Dad?" A small voice from the side of the room called, breaking through the silence.

Rick tried to stop his knees going weak, but he couldn't keep the tears from forming in the corner of his eyes as he turned to his son's voice and dropped to one knee. "Carl," he whispered, holding out his arms. "Carl…"

Shane stood, frozen in shock. "Rick?" he breathed, blood rushing through his head, spots forming in his vision at the sheer impossibility that Rick was still alive and somehow he'd found them.

Daryl couldn't stop the half-smile from distorting his face as he made his way around Lori's bed, too caught up in pain and relief at giving birth to participate in the reunion of Rick with the group. He stepped up behind Shane and raised his crossbow. "Looks like you've got some explainin' to do," he said as he brought the butt of the crossbow down on Shane's head.


	17. Chapter 17

~ Wow, The Puppeteer - you really left a long and detailed reply. I'm glad you like my story and that Olive Oil line was one of my favorites as well. I'll see what I can do if I can get them to interact positively again.

~ Hey, Zeejack - I'm glad my story was good enough for you to read it in one go.

~Snoooteroni _\- _I'm not making the chapter shorter on purpose O.O I swear! :D

~Guests, Lyra Verse, focusedonprosperity, Siancore, Makenna - Glad you guys are looking for updates, recriminations, and romance, because I plan to make all of that happen.

**Chapter 17 : Watched**

"What should we do with him?" Carol asked, wiping the sweat off of Lori's brow after having made sure she wouldn't start bleeding again.

Daryl stared down at Shane's limp body and shrugged. "Lock 'im up. Who's knows who he'd kill if we don't restrain him somehow. Rick?" He asked, looking over at the man who'd been through so much just to get to his family.

Rick was too busy still hugging Carl and checking him over for any scratches or bumps he might have earned in his absence. Carl was unabashedly crying against his father's shoulder while Michonne looked on with a bigger smile than anyone else in the room.

"I don't care man."

Daryl shrugged, then gestured to T-Dogg to help him get Shane locked up in one of the cells further down the hall. T-Dog sighed, but complied. He wasn't really feeling up to carrying some heavy dude into a room, but he'd rather if Shane didn't wake up free to roam around and go on some killing spree.

"Thank you for being alive," Rick said, laying his forehead against his son's. "Thank you."

He finally stood up, his arm draped around Carl's shoulders and keeping him at his side. "Why don't you get off your ankle," he said, turning to Michonne who was standing at an angle to redistribute her weight. "I got my boy now. I'm gonna be okay."

"What happened out there?" Dale asked, finally leaning out of the corner Shane had banished him to earlier. "Lori and Shane came out of the woods with some tale that the walker's had got you and Shane had to put you down."

Rick felt an arrow of betrayal rocket through him knowing that Lori had participated in telling everyone, including his son, that he was dead and letting no one know Shane's part in it, though she had been there. When it seemed like she couldn't do more to hurt him, she did.

He rubbed the top of his son's head. "You see that lady I came with?" He asked, pointing to Michonne. Carl nodded, his eyes going wide when he noticed the impressive sword on her back. "Her name is Michonne. We got a present for you and it's in her bag. Why don't you help her to a cell, she hurt her ankle. When she gets there, she'll give it to you."

Carl hesitated only a moment, glancing at his mother who weakly held his new baby sister in her arms. He bit his lip and turned to Michonne, offering his shoulder so she could put some of her weight on him.

"A gentleman," she said with a smile. "Just like your dad."

Carl's chest puffed out a little bit as he flicked on a flashlight and helped her to one of the spare cells on their block. He made sure not to put her in one near where Shane was being locked in by Daryl and T-Dog.

Rick glared at Lori before turning to Dale to finally get ready to answer his question. "I was out in the woods with Lori, when Shane came up out of nowhere and hit me in the head with a rock. I guess they left me for dead and been living in bliss ever since," he said, his voice hard and full of anger. "I woke up and had no idea where everyone had gone. The farm was… the farm was destroyed and there were bodies everywhere." He pressed his fingers to his eyes, remembering those first couple of days. "I thought my family had been killed, that I was in this world all alone, but I couldn't just die without trying to find them. Without knowing for sure."

"And that woman?" Carol asked, nervous about new members coming into the group.

"That woman's name is Michonne, and she saved my life more times than I can count," he said with a little smile. "And she pushed me when I almost gave up. I'll forever be grateful to her."

Carol's eyebrows shot to her hairline when she realized her first assumption had been incorrect. "So she's not…"

"Not what?"

"Not your…" she looked around at the rest of the group for backup, but they just smirked a little and shook their heads. Her brows lowered in consternation, knowing they'd been thinking the same thing when they saw Rick walk in with his arm around Michonne's waist. "Well… ehem. Never mind then."

Rick squinted at her and nodded, wondering what she had been going on about. "Michonne found me when I was on my last leg. I think she was on hers too, ya know, mentally. We kept each other fed and moving. Then a few miles from here, we got taken by some people from this town called Woodbury. They pretended to be kind to us, but they were really keeping us prisoner. On the day we were making our escape, we saw them bringing in these two," he said, tilting his head toward Maggie and Glenn. We heard 'em torturing them, so we busted them out. Then we headed here. That's what I been up to. I don't really want to go into more than that. It's depressing. But I will say that I don't trust that Governor fellow and him and his cronies might be on our gates before we know it. And they got the ammunition and population to take us out."

There was a nervous murmur through the people still in the room, and when Daryl and Carl walked into the atmosphere, they immediately stood quiet to see what Rick was talking about.

"Merle is with them, and so is Andrea."

They all blinked around at each other in surprise. They hadn't expected the blond woman to be alive and they'd thought for certain she had been crushed in the mob of walkers that had overtaken the farm. They felt a joy at knowing she'd survived but were a little uncertain about how they felt knowing she was living in a community that could possibly become an enemy of their's in the future.

"Andrea let me escape. She saw me going over the fence and let me go, so I think we can talk her back over to our side, but she's sleeping with the leader of the community, the Governor, so we'd have to offer her something a little better than what he's giving."

This produced a little nervous chuckle that broke some of the tension in the room.

"But I don't think we have to worry about Woodbury just yet. We made sure to either cover our tracks or not make any at all. But we still might want to try to fortify what we got here."

He smiled over at Carl seeing that he carried the new gun at his belt. At first he hadn't been sure about getting a gun for the boy, but Michonne had talked him into it saying that he would need it to keep himself safe from the dead and the living that wanted to hurt him. She he'd let her pick it up when they'd found one with a safety on a rotting corpse out in the woods and it had seemed perfect for Carl. They'd also made a stop at a store and found a little holster for him. Carl glowed with pride when he rested his hand on the butt of his gun and adopted a stance just like his dad's.

Without thought, his eyes drifted to Lori again. Her own eyes were barely open and blinked foggily at him, as if she weren't entirely present, while her new baby sucked gustily at her small breasts. He turned his head away from her and looked at Daryl. "Is there anywhere that I can sleep? I'm awful tired. We moved all night to get here, and constantly looking over your shoulder can wear you out real fast."

Daryl nodded and gestured for Rick to follow him back to the block of cells. Rick blinked in confusion when he saw a blond man he didn't recognize curled up on a bunk a few cells down from the one Shane was handcuffed in, but decided to worry about it tomorrow. He'd found his son. He wanted to rest, wake up the next day, and lay eyes on the boy again just to make sure this wasn't some stress-induced hallucination.

"You alright?" He asked when they were passing Michonne's cell, causing Daryl to pull up short.

She grinned over at him. "Carl really liked that present we got him."

He nodded in agreement. "Thank you for suggesting it. It really is better for him to know how to use it and to have one of his own than to be caught without any of us and not be able to protect himself."

She smirked. "You might as well just assume that I'm always right."

"You-"

"Ch. If ya'll are gonna flirt all night, I can just head back to the infirmary," Daryl said, shifting his eyes between the two. "I ain't got time to stand around. I want to get off mah feet too."

A light blush stained Rick's cheeks at the word 'flirt', but Michonne just laughed. "You can head on back. Just open the cell up next to mine for Rick before you go."

Rick's brows scrunched together in confusion while Daryl did what Michonne asked and disappeared back down the hall to take another look at the baby.

"You've been in a really good mood," Rick finally said, leaning against the barred door frame of Michonne's 'room'. "You that happy about me finding my son?"

Michonne gestured for Rick to step further into her room and to sit down on the bed next to her. The darkness but for the few candles lit at intervals along the hall made it hard for him to read her expression, but he could see that her smile had fallen a bit.

He sat down next to her, and was surprised when he felt her fingers grasp toward his hand in the darkness, then hold his as if in support.

"What's up?" he finally asked in a quiet voice, knowing this wasn't like her. He squeezed her fingers when she just continued to sit there, quietly, in the darkness. "Micho-"

"You can't be quiet for one minute," she finally muttered a little bit of a laugh in her voice, but he could hear sadness there too.

"Sorry," he huffed. He moved his other hand until he was holding hers in both of his, offering her some support. "I've been whining to you all these months, so whatever you got to say, just say it, 'Chonne. I'll listen."

She drew in a heavy breath from her chest and blew it out slowly and shakily through her lips. "I had a boy," she whispered into the darkness, so quietly that Rick had to lean in to hear her better. "I had a little boy before all of this, but he was so young and so small that I still held him in my arms. He only had a few words. Mama. Dada. Juice-Juice."

Rick scooted closer to her and wrapped one arm around her shoulders, pulling her in closer.

"We managed to get into a safe zone, before things got too bad. We had food. We were taken care of. But Mike couldn't take it. He couldn't take this new life so," The breath she blew out this time was even shakier than the first and Rick knew she was holding back tears. He didn't tell her to just let it out. They would either fall or they wouldn't. He understood that. She had to stay strong in order to keep herself together. "He killed our little boy. He thought it was better for him. He killed Andrea," she whispered. "So I killed him."

Rick held her as close as he could, feeling the vibrations of long-held sobs shake her body while she still held them back with an iron will.

"And my brother had killed himself. No better than Mike. But they both turned. So I kept them. I kept them with me on chains. I buried my boy and I kept those useless men with me on chains."

He rubbed his hand up and down her arm, trying to soothe her, but he knew there wasn't much he could do.

"So when you said you were looking for your little boy, I knew I had to help you find him. I couldn't just let you give up like I've seen so many do. Like I even gave up on trying to live. Finding your boy gave me purpose again. Seeing your wife give birth gave me hope again. There can be children in this world, and if we fight hard enough and if we don't give up, we can keep them alive until things get better or until we learn to live again in this world full of the walking dead."

Impulsively, Rick kissed her lightly on the forehead. "You kept me going too, Michonne. If it wasn't for you, I never would have even lived to see Carl again. Thank you for finding me and smacking some sense into me."

She finally chuckled a little and pulled away from him a bit, but left her hand in his. There were still tears in her voice, but he could tell that she sounded a little better. "And you needed a lot of sense smacked into you."

"I've never been that bright," he said lightly.

"You got that right."

He squinted into her eyes, all that he could see of her this close in the semi-darkness, with a little bit of concern. "You alright now?"

Michonne nodded. "Yeah. Thanks for stopping by to check on me."

He shifted his thumb across the hand he still held in his. "No problem. We stand no chance against the Governor if our best soldier is out of commission."

"Best, hunh?"

He nodded. "I haven't seen anybody else take out ten walkers in under five minutes with just a big knife." He smiled when her eyes narrowed. She hated when he called her precious katana that.

"I think it was less than two minutes."

"We can time it next time," he acquiesced easily.

She laughed and finally pulled her hand out of his. "What are you going to do about your wife?"

He shook his head and stood to head to his cell. "That's a worry for tomorrow. Tonight I'm just glad that I have my son and a better friend than a man could ever ask for."

She took off one of her gloves and chucked it at him. "Good night, Rick."

"'Night, 'Chonne."


	18. Chapter 18

message to readers :D

**Chapter 18 : On Trial**

"When are we going to deal with Shane?" Daryl asked, spitting to the side as he chewed on a tobacco leave he'd managed to find on the edge of the prison property. He'd plucked the other leaves and hung them up to dry, hoping he would be able to find a cigarette substitute before the next run.

Rick rotated his shoulders in discomfort. He didn't even like to think of the man who'd tried to kill him. He didn't like to look at him. Or Lori who was still recovering from childbirth two weeks later.

"When we deal with him," he answered bitterly, chewing on a mint leaf to freshen his breath for the day.

"I say we kill 'im," Daryl muttered off-handedly.

Rick closed his eyes on that idea. Despite the hard times they were all now trapped in, he did not want to make a conscious decision to murder someone and be responsible for choosing someone to carry out the task or have to do it himself.

"Let's just leave him locked up for now. He'll eventually quiet down."

They'd moved Shane to solitary when he wouldn't stop screaming at them about seeing Lori and his baby. Lori was another story entirely. He couldn't bring himself to look at her or speak to her. He didn't even know what he felt about her these days. Or even if he _should _feel something after everything she'd done. But he kept wondering if he should give it another try for Carl's sake.

"What you chewing on so hard?"

A smile came to his face as Michonne's voice floated to him over the low grass outside the prison.

"Some mint leaf?" He held a sprig out to her. "Want some?"

She shook her head and smiled, her teeth still as white as they'd probably been before the world fell apart. "Nah. I'm good."

He cocked a brow at her. "You sure? Just because your teeth look nice don't mean your breath _smells_ nice."

"Oh yeah? Why don't you come over here and check?"

Daryl shook his head and wandered off to leave the two the figure out whatever it was they had going on. He personally thought it was okay for Rick to have another girl, but the man still wore his ring, so he obviously wasn't there yet. He spat out a wad of chewed up tobacco leaf and stopped next to Axel who Rick and the rest of the crew had deemed okay to be let out of his cell. They hadn't given him more than a sharpened bit of wood to help poke zombie brains when they crowded the fence, but he seemed happy enough to be out of the dark interior of the prison.

"Hey man," Daryl said, pulling the knife from his side and casually slaying zombies. "What you think we oughtta do to Shane?"

Axel's hands clenched at the man's name. "That crazy man?"

"Yeah."

Axel shook his thin, blond hair out of his eyes and started killing zombies again. "I mean, I wasn't a friend to all those guys, but some of them were good guys. They didn't deserve to die like that."

Daryl spat again. "So what you think we oughta do?"

"What's Rick say?"

Daryl squinted off into the distance where Carl had come out to join Rick and Michonne and Michonne was showing Carl the proper way to load his new gun. "He doesn't want to think about him."

"I don't want to think about him either."

"You think solitary is good enough?" Daryl asked, raising an eyebrow. "Cause as it is, I feel like we're wasting supplies on him. If we let him out, who knows what he's going to do?"

Axel swallowed nervously when he realized what Daryl was getting at. "You think we should kill him?"

Daryl shrugged and started killing walkers again. "I'm certainly saying we should think about it."

"But who would do it if we decide that? You?"

Daryl actually stopped to think about that for a while. He didn't want to risk Shane running around and getting some more of them killed or trying to take them out one at a time, but he really didn't want to have to put the murder of the man on someone's conscious. He definitely didn't want to be the one to do it, but he would if he had to. "Shoot, I don't know. Maybe we could feed him to these things."

Axel wasn't a fan of Shane's, but fate sounded to cruel for _even_ that murdering psychopath. The scream and cry as you're slowly being eaten and torn limb from limb? He shook his head. "That sounds bad man. If we tossed him out here, it would just bring more walkers with his screams."

"We could maybe cut his tongue out."

Axel looked at Daryl like he'd never seen him before. When Daryl saw the open shock and burgeoning fear on the prisoner's face, he realized what he'd just said and wiped his knife, sliding it back into its holster at his side. "I was just saying, man. I don't plan on doing nothing or anything." He dusted his hands on his pants. "Don't tell nobody what we talked about, kay?"

Axel nodded, too scared to do anything else and began to wonder if everyone else might be just as crazy as Shane was.

* * *

"Has Rick stopped by to see his daughter?" Lori asked, finally managing to get out of bed and visit Maggie's cell. Maggie and Glenn had been helping to take care of the baby while Lori recovered from her loss of blood and the subsequent illness that had followed. They'd all thought she was going to die for a while there, but with Hershel's knowledge of plants and Dale's willingness to stay at her bedside, they'd managed to nurse her back to health. She was still thin and pale looking, but that was pretty much her constant state.

Maggie and Glenn glanced at each other when Lori called baby Judith Rick's daughter. There was a high possibility that she was probably Shane's and just because Shane was suddenly locked up and Rick was wondering around with a whole lot of heartbreak didn't mean that she could just jump back to the man who'd been her husband. As far as Maggie and Glenn could see, Lori was as much a part of what had happened to Rick as Shane was. She'd allowed Shane into her life. She'd let him take the place of her husband, Rick, and had immediately dropped him when Rick reappeared. Then she'd done it all over again.

"Umm…no," Maggie answered simply, wrapping the baby in a soft blue blanket Michonne had brought back for it on a recent run. She lifted the baby into her arms and passed it over to Lori who took her with a soft 'coo.'

"Really?" Lori asked, a worried expression entering her soft brown eyes. She looked down at the little, defenseless girl in her arms and shook her head. "Where's he been if not taking care of his daughter? Stop doing that?!" Sh shrieked when she saw Maggie and Glenn glance at each other again.

"He's been out on runs and reinforcing the fence, and helping Hershel with his new garden, and teaching Carl how to shoot, and-"

"What?!"

"Well, Carl has a new gun now, so Rick thought it was a good idea that-"

Lori shook her head fiercely, her long brown hair swing around her shoulders. "I thought we were done with that after the farm! I thought we were done with that. We're safe here now and my little boy doesn't need a gun!"

Maggie forced her eyes not to drift toward Glenn's, but she could see the disbelief on his face out of the corner of her eye. They were in the middle of some kind of crazy apocalypse and she thought her son didn't need the skill to protect himself? She thought they were safe because they were locked up in a little prison? No. They wouldn't be safe until all the walkers were eradicated and people like the governor disappeared from the earth.

Maggie rolled her eyes instead and walked out of the cell. "Well, you can bitch at Rick about it. I've got tower duty."

Lori scoffed and looked at Glenn for support, he'd always been the one to help her in the past when she needed something, but he just threw up his hands in surrender and walked out of the room.

She bit her lip when she realized she was all alone and her anger crumbled away into fear. What would she do if she had no one on her side? Who would take care of her? Who would make sure she was provided for?

* * *

"You hear something?"

"No," Sasha whispered in the dark passageway to her brother. "We got to keep moving."

* * *

"I saw that," Carol said with a smirk when Michonne stopped by her ration room to pick up a packet of ramen for dinner.

"Saw what?" Michonne asked, trying to decided between beef and chicken.

"Saw you teaching that boy how to shoot."

"Oh yeah," Michonne said with a smile, settling on a stool in front of Carol's makeshift freezer desk, shifting her sword on her back so it would hang comfortably between her shoulder blades. "He's smart and he's learned a bit before, so I didn't have to show him much. I talked to Daryl a while ago and he says he's planning on taking Carl out, with Rick's permission, to get some wood to see if they can make a little bow for him. Or they might be able to find one on another run, which I think is smarter and less work."

Carol pressed her lips together on one side. "You care about him?"

"Of course, he's a great kid," Michonne said, grabbing the chicken ramen and pulling it toward herself. She took the work out of Carol's hands and made a check next to her name herself under whether she grabbed a dinner item or not.

"I'm talking about Rick."

"Oh." She huffed and stood up from the stool, her ramen held securely in her hand. "Well yeah, we've been looking out for each other."

"And he's not hard on the eyes either."

Michonne grinned and shook her head. "You don't stop."

"I will once _you _stop pretending you don't want to get him naked when you see him out there with his shirt off planting turnip greens."

That earned her an eye roll from the swordswoman.

"You think about what it would be like with him all up in that little bitty cart with you," Carol said slyly.

Michonne groaned at Carol's middle school teasing. "Well, I can admit that he's better looking than Axel."

Carol's head jerked back in surprise. "Why you bringing him up."

Michonne smirked at her victory. "I've seen you two talking and laughing in here ever since he been out."

"He's just trying to get me to give him some more rations."

"By making you blush?" Michonne asked, a smug look firmly planted on her face. She'd managed to completely turn the tides.

Carol scoffed. "I wasn't blushing."

Michonne flipped her ramen in the air and caught it. "You just did."

She turned and walked out of the room before a sputtering Carol could pull enough of a sentence together to form a retort.

"Ch. I like Rick," she muttered to herself, chuckling. "Yeah, right. That bony-bodied, white boy. And his hair. If he don't shave his beard soon, he's going to look like a wild m-"

"You talking 'bout me?" Rick asked. He'd been heading toward the ration room for his and Carl's dinner, but had seen Michonne walking and mumbling to herself on the way out. For once, she hadn't seemed to notice _him _first. She seemed to usually have the senses of a hawk.

"What?" She asked, her dark skin somehow flushing darker.

"Boy-bodied… white boy?…"

Her eyes went round, but she quickly firmed her expression into it's usual, casual friendliness. "Any of those words a lie?"

Crinkles formed around his eyes at her usual teasing and quick comeback. "Can't say they are, but I thought I was gettin' a little ripped out there working up a sweat."

She poked a finger in his chest and smiled up at him. "Nope. Nothin' but bones."

He grabbed her hand and slid it over to one of his pecs. "What about here?"

She gasped in surprise and snatched her hand away from him. Rick, slightly startled by her reaction raised his brows and stepped away.

"Um…"

"So this is why you haven't been by to see your daughter," a distraught voice said, cutting through the tension clogging the hallway.

Rick turned around to see a pale, thin Lori with hollow eyes. She seemed to be two steps away from her death bed but for the spots of color in her cheeks.

"You've been fooling around with this- this-this… This _woman_!" she sputtered. "You brought her in here and around my son and you won't even come and help take care of your daughter."

His brows were so low that his blue eyes looked black. Michonne had never seen him look so angry. "Michonne ain't been nothing but good to me and Carl which is a whole lot more than I can say about you."

"You were dead! That's the only reason I was with him. You were dead!"

Rick closed his eyes to her reasoning and stalked away down the hall. "I'll see you later Michonne. Lori. I hope you never speak another word to me."


	19. Chapter 19

~ Hi, everyone :D I know it's been a long time since I updated Y_Y But I was in the middle of a move and all sorts of other things so I got a bit behind and moving boxes from one place to another can really drain the creativity. I'm glad that you guys have been so vocal about what you want to happen to Shane, but just like Rick, I need to think about it too. I'm also glad that you liked the interaction between Michonne and Carol. They are both at the top of my favorite character list, so I really wanted them to have a bit of dialog together.

**Chapter 19 : On The Fence**

"What's wrong you?"

Lori flinched and glanced up at Carol's voice. When the woman's concerned face came into focus, her eyes dropped and scuttled around the small cell that housed her and her newborn baby. Except her baby wasn't in the crib that she usually slept in, right next to Lori's bed.

"Where's my baby?!" Lori shrieked.

Carol blinked in surprise. "Maggie came to get her about an hour ago. She said you handed her the diaper bag and everything saying it would be good for Judith to get some fresh air."

"What?" She ran a hand through her stringy hair, brushing it out of her eyes. "Oh. Yeah. I knew that. I knew that. Did Shane like what we named her?"

Carol's brows met in a 'w' on her forehead and her small lips pursed in confusion. "What?"

"He's been so looking forward to seeing his daughter born. I know he's a hardass, but he's a real softy when it comes to kids. He's always wanted some of his own and he's been worrying about the baby ever since I told him I was pregnant. I haven't seen him around though. Did he not like the name?"

"Umm… he liked it just fine," Carol said hesitantly. "I'll let him know you were asking after him."

"Where is he?"

"Umm, out making sure the walkers don't build up around the fence. Umm… how about you take a nap and I'll come back with your baby."

Lori smiled and nodded while a bewildered Carol walked away slowly, wondering if Lori's strange behavior was something she should discuss with Hershel.

* * *

"What do you mean she seems to be losing it?"

The group had gathered together to talk over the new development with Lori. Rick stood off to the side, his eyes on the ground and his hands on his hips.

Carol turned to answer Maggie's question. "She seems to be losing track of time. She doesn't remember all the stuff that happened with Shane after you came back and she didn't remember you going in to take her baby earlier today."

Carl folded his arms over his thin chest, his eyes hidden beneath the brim of his hat.

"What do you think we should do?"

Rick scuffed the toe of his boot through the thin layer of dirt he could see on the prison floor. "Lori's always been pretty dramatic. She might just be throwing a tantrum after what I said to her a few days ago."

Carol sucked on the corner of her lower lip. "I don't know. She seemed pretty messed up."

Rick draped an arm over Carl's shoulder and rested a hand on his chest. "You been in to see your mama lately?"

Carl dropped his chin and shook his head. "I didn't think you'd want me to, after what she did."

Rick squeezed his eyes shut at how his own behavior had shaped his son's. "She's still your mama, boy," he said slowly. "And she needs to be taken care of. She's made some bad choices just like all of us and we probably'll keep on making 'em. Why don't you go see how she's doing? Talk to her a little bit. Hold your baby sister."

The young boy's chin firmed stubbornly. "She let me think you were dead."

Rick pulled Carl in for a quick hug. "I'm not son. I'm not. And I don't plan to be until I know you're safe for good. So you go on in there and see your mama. Maybe visit her for a few minutes every day for a while. Keep her company. Alright, son?" He asked, his hand on Carl's shoulder.

The boy nodded, although reluctantly, and trundled off to look in on his mother.

Michonne lifted a hand and gently squeezed Rick's forearm, "Maybe you should stop by and see her too?"

His mouth twisted bitterly at the thought. There was a time when he would have done anything for Lori, but that time was now in the distant past. The pedestal he'd held her on had been tarnished and after she'd run off with Shane after he'd tried to kill Rick, the pedestal had crumbled clean away. There was nothing between he and Lori now but Carl.

"I'll think about it," he said roughly.

Michonne almost rolled her eyes at the lack of conviction in his voice. "Alright," she said instead.

"And what are we going to do about Shane?" Daryl popped in.

Rick felt a muscle begin to twitch in his neck. There was nothing that could ruin his mood like thinking of Shane. Some days he found himself just wishing the situation would take care of itself somehow.

"Is he still being violent?" He asked Axel who was responsible for taking the man his meals.

Axel shook his head, stringy blond hair falling into his eyes. "He done got real quiet," he said, nervously squeezing his hands together. "He still eats all his meals, but he just sits all squished up in the corner."

Rick's lips compressed at that. "Do you think…I don't…" He brushed at his beard and frowned around at the group. "I can't kill 'im."

Hershel and nodded in agreement, but Dale's beady eyes narrowed. "What are we going to do with him if we don't kill him? Can we trust him not to kill us all in our sleep one night?"

Everyone looked at each other. Worried and uncertain what to do, but no one really wanted to be the one to commit to murdering Shane or asking someone else to do it. They were in a poor position, a very poor position.

"We-"

Carol held up a hand that immediately silenced the room because they noticed the anxiety in her expression as well.

"What?" Daryl mouthed silently, heading toward her while preparing his crossbow.

She shook her head, signaling him to be still and listen.

Everyone in the room froze in place and tilted their heads and soon they could also hear a faint scuffling. Everyone put their hands on their weapons while Hershel and Dale shifted to the back of the room to give the more able bodied fighting crew enough room to maneuver.

Suddenly the sound of scuffing halted and they could hear voices. Clearly.

All of their eyebrows rose to their hairlines when they realized that what they were hearing were live people and not walkers. Something they considered an even more dangerous situation.

"What should we do?" Carl asked in a low voice so it wouldn't carry.

Rick looked at his bunch of people. He didn't want to see any of them get hurt, but he also didn't want to just take out another group of people if they were just in a bad situation and weren't dangerous.

"Which of you knows the layout of the prison best?"

Everyone glanced at each other, but then Carol and Daryl raised their hands. Axel, over in the corner also had his hand slightly raised while meekly looking at the floor.

Rick nodded and signaled for the three of them to move closer to him.

"Do you think you can pinpoint where they are by just listening to them?"

Axel tilted his head and brushed his long hair off of his ear as if that would help increase his listening ability. Carol smirked a little and shook her head. "Sounds like they're rounding the corner of cell-block 'C'," he muttered, still uncomfortable in his position in the group.

Daryl nodded in agreement.

"Is there a door between us and them?" Rick asked, trying to remember if he'd walked through an extra set of seal-able doors on his way to this meeting.

Axel said their was, so T-Dogg, currently in command of the keys that day, flicked through the set to try to find the one they would need. He grinned in success when he found it, holding it out for the others to see.

"And is there a door we can shut behind them?" he asked, his voice taking on urgency as the voices seemed to come closer. "We need to be able to get to it."

Axel helped them quickly lay out a plan of trapping the group they heard approaching and Daryl and Glenn each took a key in order to lay it in place. Glenn would work his way behind the group because he was the quickest.

While the rest of Rick's group waited for Glenn and Daryl to return, they also hoped that the group of strangers was a lot smaller than it sounded in the echoing hallway. And that they weren't armed. Or at least if they were armed, it was just a bunch of knives.

They were so deep in thought, they jumped when they heard voices begin to raise outside the hallway.

"Put it down!" They heard what sounded like Daryl shout, then they heard a single shot and the fwoop of an arrow. Someone screamed and then there was silence.

Carol put a hand over her mouth, afraid for Daryl and Glenn, but they'd determined it was best for the strangers not to know exactly how many people were living there so they could pretend they had more people than did.

"Put it down!" They all sighed in relief when they heard Daryl's voice again. Someone was whimpering in pain. "Kick it over. If you've got anymore weapons, I suggest you give them to me right now, cause I can promise you we've got a lot more ammo than you."

They heard murmurs and then feet shuffling in the hallway. Daryl soon popped his head into the room they were in and dropped off two guns. Rick stepped over to them and checked the ammo cartridges. Each only had one or two bullets. He wouldn't know how much they really had until he had a chance to pat them down and search whatever bags they were carrying.

"One of them is heart," Daryl reported. "A woman. I think it's too late for her. Looks like a walker bite."

They all nodded in agreement. They'd seen their share of people turn and knew the woman probably didn't have long. "Are they going to do it?" Maggie asked.

Daryl shrugged. "When I said they'd have to kill her, they all freaked out. I offered to do it for them, but they freaked out even more."

"How many people?"

"Five."

Rick nodded and put a hand to his chin, thinking.

Michonne frowned. "What are we going to do if they don't kill that sick woman? She could end up turning all of them."

Daryl shook his head and disappeared back out the door.

"Should we just take her out from a distance? You're a good enough shot," she said, turning to Rick.

He thought about it for a moment, then realized he couldn't do it if he didn't have the rest of the other groups consent. If they were going to strike up any sort of relationship or agreement, shooting one of their friends wasn't a good place to start. No matter how close she was to a turn. And even though he didn't like the thought that came into his mind, he realized they were locked away from them so everyone he knew and cared about was safe from their threat.

"Let's just leave them to it. They'll either kill her before she turns or when she starts attacking them. We shouldn't take that decision out of their hands."

Michonne agreed with his reasoning.

"This on top of Shane?" T-Dogg muttered. "We're going to need to work out some kind of system or something."

It was one of those statements that made them realize all over again that the world really _had_ changed. They had only themselves to rely on when it came to rules, upholding justice, and even determining whether a person should live or die at their hands. A certain amount of fear settled over the group along with mounting uncertainty. The younger members of the party found themselves turning toward Dale and Hershel, usually the quickest to offer advice. But at this moment the two men were silent.


	20. Chapter 20

\- Sorry for the sporadic updates, but I'm living that graduate school life right now. And sorry so short of an update, but homework is on my mind.

Chapter 20 : Walled In

"What you looking at?" the black girl, they'd found out her name was Sasha, growled at Daryl when he leaned toward the bars to look in on the injured woman who looked too close to turning for his liking.

"What's about to be a whole lot of walker bait," he mumbled, scanning her up and down. She looked like she was good in a fight, but if she wasn't willing to take out someone who was about to turn into one of those dead things outside, then her life wasn't worth nothin.

"We said we would take care of own, so we'll take care of our own."

Tyrese came up and put a calming hand on her shoulder, which she promptly shoved off and just turned her angry glare onto him.

"You didn't do anything when they took our guns!"

"They have a lot more than we do," he said with an incredulous look. "And if you didn't notice, they had us caged and surrounded. There was nothing I could have done."

Sasha scoffed but laid off of her brother. There was nothing to be done now anyway. Absolutely nothing. They were trapped between cells without weapons at the mercy of a bunch of strangers. At least they didn't seem bent on raping or killing them.

"Could you at least stop watching us while we wait for one of ours to die?"

Daryl sniffed and rubbed at his nose. "Whatever," he mumbled as he walked away. Carol popped out of nowhere and smacked him on the shoulder.

"So that's why you never took me up on my offer."

"What?" he asked in confusion.

Carol laughed at his befuddled expression. "You're into black girls."

Daryl glanced over his shoulder at Sasha, then rolled his eyes at Carol. He didn't even bother to say anything as he broke away from her to go look in on Shane like he did every other day. He wanted to make sure the man didn't mysteriously disappear from his cell when he wasn't looking.

000

"So is that what we're going to do?" Michonne asked, squatting in the grass beside Rick. He was weeding the tomato garden with a hard expression on his face.

"What are you talking about?" he asked, though he knew perfectly well what she meant. He wasn't exactly taking a leading role in deciding what to do with the new strangers in their midst or with Shane who was a constant worry and danger on everyone's mind.

"You know what I'm talking about," she grumbled.

He shook his head. "Sasha and her people seem to know what they have to do and what will happen when that woman just dies. They'll take care of it. It's their right."

"Yeah. But what are you planning on doing with them once they've gotten rid of the infected?" she prodded. "Are we going to let them join with us, or are we going to just hand them a few supplies then tell them to hope for the best from the outside that's already taken that boy's mother away from him."

Rick's head drooped between his heavy shoulders. He hated it when Michonne forced him to think, forced him to face up to the decisions he'd decided to take on when he'd come back and fallen into the role of leader of the group.

"We can't just send them out for the same reason the governor couldn't send _us _back out," Rick groaned, putting down his trowel and joining Michonne on the damp ground. It had rained a few days back and all of the moisture had yet to leave the earth. "And I'm not going to kill them. That just ain't my way."

"So you're saying they're either going to have to earn our trust and join us or stay locked in that cage for however much longer any of us have to live."

Both of those solutions were unsettling for Rick. What if they turned out to be psychopaths who killed them in their sleep? What if the food ran out and he had to choose between feeding his group or theirs? What if - He pressed his hands into his eyes. There were so many what ifs.

Michonne seeing Rick's distress hated that she'd brought up the topic on the first place, but it was something they all had to think about and it was up to Rick to point them in the right direction.

"Should we talk to the old guys? They might have a solution."

Rick shook his head and having to hem and haw with either Dale or Hershel again. The two men had such strong and differing opinions that he felt like he was pushing against an aging mountain and a tree whenever he had to speak to either one of them about anything. "I feel like they've talked me to death already about what to do with Shane and the new laws we're going to have to make. I've got all the information. I've just got to sort it out or let it fall into place where it's something I can live with. Something we can all live with."

He plucked a stalk of onion grass from the ground and gnawed it between his teeth, enjoying the savory flavor that rolled over his tongue. The stuff was like candy and he and Carl couldn't get enough of it once they'd found a patch. Now they were down to trying to conserve the few bits that were left until they managed to grow some more.

"And you can't live with killing them or Shane," Michonne stated, squinting off into the distance.

"I just-" he shook his head. "I just don't think I could bring myself to do it. Even knowing what Shane's done. We've known each other since middle school. Plus, it just a right."

Michonne glanced over at him. "There are a lot of things that aren't right about the world we're living in right now, but we've waded through it and done what we've had to do."

He narrowed his eyes at her, his expression one of disbelief. "Do you want me to kill him too?"

Michonne shook her head, then leaned back on the grass so she could have a direct view of the sky.

"No. I don't want you to do anything you know you couldn't come back from. There's a lot of things I'd miss about you if you turned out to be the kind of guy who could just kill his best friend in the name of justice. He's locked up for now, away from people he could hurt. We can just leave it at that."

Rick nodded.

"And those people, I feel like we can trust them. I feel like if we just talk about what we need from them and what they might need for us, figure out what kind of people they are, they'll make good additions to our group."

"You really think so?" He asked, looking down at her.

Michonne nodded in full confidence and it took some of the weight off of Rick's shoulders. "Do you want to bet the one to get to know them?"

She quickly shook her head, causing Rick to laugh. "I'll leave that to Carol and Glenn. They're the most talkative and busy-bodied anyway, besides Dale."

Rick chuckled in agreement.

000

Lori shuffled down the hall, one hand trailing along the wall to keep her on her feet. She was far weaker than she thought she'd been. Barely able to stand. The bags under her eyes were so dark, they appeared sunken.

"My baby," she murmured. "There's something wrong with my baby."

She made a scooping motion with her arm around her flat stomach. "I don't feel her kicking."

She tapped at the wall when she reached a corner. "I don't feel her kicking."

"Mom?"

She whirled around when she heard Carl's voice. He stood at the end of the hallway, dim light from a window allowed her to see his form. He ambled toward her, his gait slightly slower than usual.

"Mom?"

"I don't feel her kicking," she whispered to him, her dry throat not allowing her to get any louder.

"Mom?"

"Carl what's wrong? You're walking funny. Is your gunshot wound hurting again?"


	21. Chapter 21

**Chapter 21: Wretched**

Shane sat crouched in the corner of his cell, his knees pulled up to his shoulders and his hands cradling his head. The walls seemed to pulsate around him, coming ever closer.

"I'm sorry, brother," he whispered over and over again as he done for the past few days. It seemed that Rick's face was the only thing he could see sometimes, his voice in his mind, his accusing and betrayed eyes flashing in the darkness. "I'm so sorry, brother. I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

The little flap at the door lifted and a plate with a smattering of food on it was pressed through the gap. He scrabbled toward it, the brief hint of daylight flickering through his only moment of relief and salvation before he was cast back into hell. He collapsed next to the food, eating only a portion of it. They only gave him one plate per day. Either as punishment or just in an effort to conserve. He pressed himself to the floor and closed his eyes, sleeping again. It was all he could do. An endless cycle of fitful sleep and restless moments awake then those brief seconds of light through that slot in his door. "I'm so sorry," his mouth worked in his sleep. "I'm sorry."

* * *

"Baby?" Lori shuffled toward her boy, her arms outstretched. She was just about to pull him in close when a small shape darted around her, burying a blade hilt deep in her son's head.

"Carl!" she shrieked.

The small figure came toward her and pressed a bloodied hand to her mouth. "Be quiet, mom! You're gonna bring more."

Lori felt herself slipping into unconsciousness, then suddenly she knew no more.

* * *

Rick couldn't bring himself to look at the little girl napping in her crib in the corner of Lori's cell, so instead he focused on Hershel applying a cool towel to his wife's forehead. She looked like a corpse, all bones and stretched skin. She'd always been delicate, but he'd never expected her to break.

"What the hell are we gonna do with her?" He ground out. "If she's lost her mind, we can't trust her with her baby. Hell, she probably woulda fed it to that walker if she'd had it with her."

Hershal combed a hand through his beard as he stood to face the younger man. "I've got a suggestion, but you might not like it."

Rick shrugged one shoulder. "Shoot."

Hershel looked over his shoulder at the woman in question, then back at Rick. "She needs to be taken care of and Shane is just rotting away in that cell."

Dark brows lowered stormily over blue eyes. "What the hell are you suggesting?"

Michonne laid a hand on his arm to keep him calm, then tilted her head for Hershel to continue.

"Maybe we can put them off in a cell by themselves in another block. Shane can take care of her and nurse her back to health and who knows, maybe they'll both be just a little bit saner if they have each other."

"We can't trust-"

Hershel held up his hands. "I'm not saying we give Shane any kind of free reign or anything. Someone else will still be in charge of the keys for his cell, but there's on sense in wasting any of our strength taking care of Lori when there's someone who wouldn't hesitate to do the job. Carl doesn't need this kinda burden on himself and the rest of us need to be working on other parts of this prison. Cleaning it up. Growing plants and whatnot."

Michonne saw that Rick was thinking about it so didn't offer in her opinion, knowing he would only feel right about his decision if he came to it himself, weighing it from each angle.

He didn't have any plans for Shane other than letting him rot in solitary for as long as they could feed him and he had no plans of going back to Lori. He could've asked Carol or Maggie to take care of her, but he'd be taking their expert shooting from the walls if he did that. No. It was a good plan. Lock them both up together then maybe he'd at least have two more strong people in his group should Woodbury choose to attack. He sighed, his shoulders sagging, hoping this wouldn't turn out poorly for everyone involved and gave the go ahead.

"The baby?" Michonne asked. "Will she be in there with 'em too?"

Rick thought it over for a while, then nodded. "She belongs to them. And no matter how crazy Shane gets, I don't think he would hurt a child."

There was a little doubt in Hershel's eyes, but he kept the words back.

* * *

"What do you think they're going to do to us?" Conroy asked Sasha as she helped him move his wife's body to a corner of the room they were all trapped in.

She glared through the bars where she could see Daryl lighting up a cigarette at the end of the hallway. "They haven't killed us yet, so that's something at least," she growled, angry about being cooped up in one spot for more than two days and forced to use a communal piss bucket. "And they fed us, so I really don't think they're gonna kill us now."

"Then what?" Conroy asked. "Why are we still locked up if they're not going to kill us? Maybe they're just fattening us up."

Tyrese's face reflected his shock and horror at the thought they might be in a Hansel and Gretel kind of situation. He hadn't signed on for that. He would rather be shot through the bars right now than have to worry about his bones being picked clean by a bunch of cannibals.

"Let's fuckin' hope not," he hissed. "I ain't got time to be nobody's eight piece meal."

David, Conroy's son, was pale as a sheet at the thought. He hadn't spoken much since his mother had turned then been killed. "Do you think they're gonna send us back out there?" he whispered, thinking about how hard of a time they'd had running through the woods to get away from walkers and other threats. He'd honestly rather be a prisoner. At least he knew where he stood as a prisoner. Knew where the danger came from. Out there, he could barely close his eyes without worrying that the breeze against his skin was the rasping breath of an undead creature preparing to take a bite out of him.

Sasha pinched her lips tight. "I really hope not. Especially not if they're gonna keep our weapons." Her eyes shot to Tyrese at this. She still blamed him for the loss of their guns and knives even though they'd really had no choice. They'd been surrounded, boxed in, and outgunned.

"Maybe we can ask that Carol woman the next time we see her," Conroy suggested.

"Or you could ask me."

Sasha's head shot up at the gravely voice she'd never heard before. She cursed under her breath. Shit. How many people actually lived here. She'd seen about four and now someone else with a dark woman at his side.

"And who the hell are you?" She asked, injecting as much bravado into her voice as she could, willing it not to shake. She suspected she was finally being introduced to the leader of this little gang.

"Rick Grimes," he said with something close to a smile. The woman at his side just stood with her hands on her hips, looking bored. "I took care of one or two things today so figured I should finish up a few other…chores." His eyes shifted around the tattered looking people trapped behind the bars as he uttered the words.

Conroy shuddered, hoping that by 'took care' this Rick Grmes character meant something like passing out foot massages and not what he associated with Al Capone and a few zoot suits.

* * *

"Where're you taking me?" Shane demanded, his voice low. He couldn't seem to make it louder. "Ya'll gon' kill me? Is that it?"

Daryl shook him hard, wanting him to shut up. T-Dogg stood at their backs with a gun. They'd been careful to cuff Shane up before they dragged him out of solitary, blind folding him and putting away their weapons so they were out of reach should he decide to try and attack them.

"Why'd ya'll keep me locked up so long if you were just gonna kill me?" his voice broke. He wished it hadn't but it did. "Can I see Rick before…can I…my daughter?"

He was thrown forward, his knees slamming hard into the floor. He felt the cuffs clicked off his wrist and another cell door was shut behind him.

Shane pounded his fists against his head as he listened to them walk away. He wanted to die. Had they just moved him to another cell to mess with his mind. Had they-

His frenzied thoughts cutt off when he heard a sharp intake of breath, then they high pitched cry of a child. He stumbled up to his feet, ripping the blindfold from his eyes and nearly collapsed right back down to the floor. He blinked around at the cell, light from a window about ten feet away stabbing right into his soul. He took hesitant steps forward, afraid that his mind had finally broke in that dark pit called solitary.

The crib shone like a white beacon against the dreary, gray concrete floor of the prison cell.

"What the hell do you mean by this, brother?" he asked, almost afraid to touch the child. "After what I did to you, what the hell?"

* * *

Rick dug a furrow in the ground, hoping to have it ready for some corn seeds Daryl had found. He heard her before he saw her.

"Hey, woman," he said, standing up with a little grin when he caught the annoyed expression on her face.

"You'll call me Michonne or nothin' at all if you want to keep all your little man bits," she spat with a sharp little smirk to soften the blow. "I was about to take Carl out for some more shootin' lessons if you want to come."

He shook his head. "Nah, you're not so bad a shot that you always need me around."

She glared and threw something at him. She always seemed to have something on hand to chuck at him if she wasn't close enough to hit him.

"I'm sure he'll learn to shoot within at least a foot o' the target," he teased.

Their banter was interrupted by Carol appearing from the direction of the rain collection barrels. Her lips were thinned in a grim line, but she always seemed to look that way after the death of her daughter. Unless Axel was around, of course. He seemed to get under her skin in a way no one else could.

"I really hope you're doing the right thing," she muttered, looking to the fence where Conroy and Tyrese had taken up some of the work of keeping the interested walkers at bay. "With them and with Shane. I find it hard to trust any of 'em."

"Well, I trust _them _a whole lot more than I trust Shane," Rick said, gesturing to the new members of their group. "At least none of them has tried to kill me yet."

Michonne barked an amused laugh and Carol shook her head.

"I have a bad feeling about this."

"I've had a bad feeling about everythang since I woke up from my coma and found the dead didn't stay quite so dead anymore," Rick said. "If we just go around killin' everybody we don't trust, what exactly are we even livin' for?"

The women on each side of him shook their heads and shrugged, neither having an answer for him.

He sighed, running a hand through his brown hair. "I really hope I'm doin' the right thang too."


End file.
